We are using this solution to provide backend services to our customers. I am not very technical but we are using the document and storage services of Azure.
Microsoft Azure OverviewUNIXBusinessApplicationPrice:
Microsoft Azure Buyer's Guide
Download the Microsoft Azure Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: May 2023
What is Microsoft Azure?
Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud platform, where developers can create, deploy, and maintain their apps. This cloud application platform allows developers to concentrate on the actual applications, while it takes care of all the elements behind the apps.
Windows Azure works across multiple frameworks and languages. It is fully scalable, localized in that it is hosted globally in many datacenters, and has widespread capabilities with elements of application development, deployment, and management.
Azure is comprised of several different service modules, including Infrastructure; Web; Mobile; Dev & Test; Big Data; Media;Storage, Backup & Recovery; and Identity & Access Management.
Microsoft Azure works as a:
- Platform as a service (PaaS)
- Software as a service (SaaS)
- Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
Microsoft Azure is available:
- On-premises
- Hybrid
- Multi-cloud
- At the edge
Compared to its competitors, Microsoft Azure:
- Has more affordable features
- Has easier migration for organizations already using other Microsoft tools
- Has several educational resources available
- Provides robust support
- Is ideal for small and large businesses
Microsoft Azure Features:
- Scalability
- Stability
- Flexibility
- Azure Site Recovery
- Active Directory
- Monitoring features
- Cloud-based
- Automated tasks
- Change capability cadence
- Showback capabilities
- Information protection
- Azure Data Lake
- Excellent portal
- Intuitive user interface
- Remote desktop
- Fast provisioning
- Data security
- Data resiliency
- Speed of service
- Integrated delivery pipeline
- Disaster recovery
- Robust templates
- Flexible coding languages
- Virtual systems testing
Benefits of Microsoft Azure:
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Because Microsoft Azure is an IaaS, organizations can deploy as well as manage applications easily and quickly. Azure also provides you with the ability to customize the cloud software to meet your specific business needs.
- Seamless integration: Microsoft Azure is built to seamlessly integrate with existing IT departments via hybrid databases, secure private connections, and storage solutions.
- Cost-effective: Because Azure can harmoniously exist in your business environment with your data center, it is a very cost-effective solution.
- Analytics support: Azure is designed with built-in support that is used to analyze data and provide key insights. Azure offers Cortana Analytics, Stream Analytics, Machine Learning, and SQL services.
- Unique storage system: Compared to other cloud services, Microsoft Azure has more data centers and delivery points, which helps create an optimal user experience and also helps deliver content faster. In addition, Microsoft Azure makes it possible for organizations to exchange content across several virtual machines.
- Enhanced flexibility: Azure provides extreme flexibility by allowing you to choose any level of functionality you require. It also supports many of the same technologies IT teams and developers usually depend on, making it easier for them to manage.
- Easy implementation: Microsoft Azure is easy and quick to deploy. If necessary, you can change web apps to Azure with almost zero downtime.
Reviews from Real Users:
"It is a flexible solution that is straightforward to use," says the principal consultant at a computer software company.
OmarJ., future datacenter consultant: Microsoft Azure Cloud at a tech company, adds that "The user interface is very nice and makes everything easy to use."
“You can build an environment in minutes. It's very good in terms of being an infrastructure as a service, and I found that really fascinating,” says an information technology consultant at a computer software company.
"I think Azure's level of automation to achieve efficiency or agility is valuable. I also like the change capability cadence, the showback capabilities, and understanding what our costs are," says an enterprise architect at an energy/utilities company.
Marco C., Ing. at Wolters Kluwer, says "The valuable features of Microsoft Azure are that it is cloud-based and has good storage. The storage is completely managed by Azure. We do not need to do any patching of security because it is handled by Azure which is a benefit. The solution is fully compatible with the Microsoft technology stack and is very scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is it has everything together in one place. It is one large tool with lots of small tools that are updated often," says the owner of a media company.
Microsoft Azure was previously known as Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure.
Microsoft Azure Customers
BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Microsoft Azure Video
Archived Microsoft Azure Reviews (more than two years old)
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CEO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Reliable, highly scalable, and provides excellent technical support
Pros and Cons
- "I have found Microsoft Azure to be stable. We have large corporate customers and it is working great."
What is our primary use case?
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for approximately four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have found Microsoft Azure to be stable. We have large corporate customers and it is working great.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution is highly scalable and this is one of the main reasons why we are using it.
In our organization, we have five administrators using the solution. We are providing services to a few thousand clients on Azure infrastructure and we plan to increase usage.
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
May 2023

Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2023.
708,461 professionals have used our research since 2012.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support has been very responsive in dealing with our issues.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution could be cheaper.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before we used this solution we evaluated other cloud platforms, such as Google and Amazon. We choose Azure due to data policy reasons.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Microsoft Azure a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Solutions Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has good technical support and monitoring tools
Pros and Cons
- "We are satisfied with the technical support."
- "The process by which our customers can switch from one subscription to another should be simplified."
What is our primary use case?
We help our customers to migrate from on-premises to Azure.
We generally sell the infrastructure as a service, meaning we help our customers to migrate their on-premises VMware to cloud.
What needs improvement?
The process by which our customers can switch from one subscription to another should be simplified.
For how long have I used the solution?
I cannot say for certain for how long we have been selling Microsoft Azure products, although I do know that we have been doing so for a long time.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
We are satisfied with the technical support. Customers who have signed up for premium service benefit from better support.
How was the initial setup?
The issue of installation does not concern us, as our job is solely to help our customers to migrate.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing price is fine. We pay it on a monthly basis.
What other advice do I have?
The solution is cloud-based.
We feel the monitoring tools to be sufficient. The interface, monitoring and dashboard features are good. I cannot say for certain about the security features.
While I cannot definitively say how many customers we have that are using Microsoft Azure, as I am not part of the production team, I do know that they comprise the majority.
I would recommend the solution to others contemplating its use.
I rate Microsoft Azure as an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
May 2023

Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2023.
708,461 professionals have used our research since 2012.
CEO at Finanblue
Secure, useful with incredible customization and the support is good
Pros and Cons
- "If you have large traffic amounts, Microsoft Azure will continue to provide our customers with the best storage experience."
- "The initial setup can be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use Microsoft Azure to host our software development solutions and solutions for reproduction.
We have many solutions running alongside Microsoft Azure that are mainly for the financial sector.
We use Microsoft Azure to host and develop.
What is most valuable?
It's great! It's very useful.
It has a separate environment for developers and developers' solutions. We have environments for PaaS and quality assurance, and we also have an environment where we can lend our solutions to our customers.
We like the Azure DevOps.
If you have large traffic amounts, Microsoft Azure will continue to provide our customers with the best storage experience.
It's very secure.
Microsoft Azure has incredible customization.
What needs improvement?
It's not user-friendly because it is made for developers. A normal user can't use it, but for a developer, it is a very friendly solution.
The initial setup can be improved. It should be simplified and made easier for developers to set it up.
I would like to see the use of Microsoft DevOps simplified. It's automation to develop and deploy software that is very difficult to use. It is so complicated and we need extra time to learn it. It is not easy.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Microsoft Azure since 2016.
We use the standard S3 applications.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is very reliable. It's a highly stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure offers huge scalability. We can manage scalability automatically or manually. It is very fast and very reliable.
We have approximately 30 users in our organization who use Microsoft Azure.
How are customer service and technical support?
The service is very good. They are highly technical and provide answers to things that are not easy to apply. Before the pandemic, at least, the support was good and very fast.
We had some issues with support after the pandemic, where the replies took a very long time. Technical support could improve their response time. They should respond faster.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use many Microsoft tools, such as Microsoft Teams, also Skype, and Google Meet.
How was the initial setup?
The initials setup is difficult. It requires specialists.
Similar to Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, it is complex.
It can take six to twelve months to deploy this solution.
What about the implementation team?
We had help from specialists to help with the complex setup. It is not easy for everyone.
What other advice do I have?
I would suggest calling a specialist who is certified to help with the setup and the deployment, don't do it yourself. The specialists are reliable and can deploy the solution faster.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Project Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable single sign-on authentication with access to multiple Microsoft applications
Pros and Cons
- "We like that you sign in only once and that grants access to all of the Microsft applications, as well as others such as ServiceNow and SAP Concur."
- "Ease of use could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for single sign-on authentication.
What is most valuable?
We like that you sign in only once and that grants access to all of the Microsft applications, as well as others such as ServiceNow and SAP Concur.
What needs improvement?
Ease of use could be improved. You wouldn't just be able to use this solution without being trained on it.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have Microsoft Azure for approximately five years.
We are always updating Microsoft.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's been pretty stable. There have only been one or two instances where Microsoft went down. One time, it was the building's main operations center that was struck by lightning and caught on fire.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have 20,000 users in our organization who are using this solution.
As we acquire other companies, we will increase the usage.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support needs improvement. If you are able to get a rep then it's great. If not, you are left hanging.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we used Okta.
We switched over because we got the Enterprise package with Microsoft Suite.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was completed by our internal Microsoft team.
What was our ROI?
Microsoft Azure definitely provides us with a return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing costs for Enterprise are on an annual basis. In addition, we pay to have Gartner help us negotiate.
What other advice do I have?
It is best to have a dedicated team because it is not easy to use and get set up or to get acclimatized in the amount of training that you need to become familiar with the solution.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
RPA Developer
A cloud computing platform that is stable, reliable, and easy to set up
Pros and Cons
- "It is a reliable solution that is easy to set up."
- "They can improve the number of requests. Maybe they can increase it from 5,000 requests to 10,000 requests a month. Sometimes when you try to connect, it is quite unresponsive. When you want to communicate using the API, you get an internal error."
What is our primary use case?
We have an internal system we are currently building. We use machine learning, where we are training models for extraction. You send a document or an invoice and move it to Azure using an endpoint, and then you get the extracted information. That is what we are currently doing.
What is most valuable?
It is a reliable solution that is easy to set up.
What needs improvement?
1.One is not able to upload custom images in azure and not able to access windows client images. This can be improved
2. It moves your business’ compute power from your data center or office to the cloud. As with most cloud service providers, Azure needs to be expertly managed and maintained, which includes patching and server monitoring.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Microsoft Azure within the last 12 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is a stable and reliable solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
AWS- It was trusted at the time since it was the longest serving
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was excellent.
What about the implementation team?
In-House
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is affordable compared to other vendors
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to new users. If you want to get a free subscription or trial, it is quite good. Even for an organization, it is good because of the number of requests they offer in the free version. There are many.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
CTO at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Very scalable, easy to use, and provides a great ROI, but needs better pricing model, better support, and a cybersecurity feature
Pros and Cons
- "It is really scalable and easy to use."
- "They should include a cybersecurity feature to improve the protection of the systems. They could do better in terms of the pricing model. Its price keeps on changing. Their technical support can also be better."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for cloud adoption for medium and large companies. We are using its latest version.
What is most valuable?
It is really scalable and easy to use.
What needs improvement?
They should include a cybersecurity feature to improve the protection of the systems.
They could do better in terms of the pricing model. Its price keeps on changing. Their technical support can also be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with this solution for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable, and it works. It is not the best public cloud in terms of technology, but it does its job, and it does it well.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is really scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is fair. It is something they can improve.
How was the initial setup?
Its initial setup is very easy.
What was our ROI?
It provides a great ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its pricing model can be improved. It is variable, and if you do a simulation now, within a few months, the price can change, and your simulation would no longer be valid.
What other advice do I have?
It is great for a new workload and if you are starting with new systems.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Frequently updated enhancements, easy to use, and reliable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of the solution are ease of use and the enhancements are continually being updated."
- "There could be more documentation and video tutorials to incorporate each and every feature. This way one can easily get the knowledge and implement it."
What is our primary use case?
We are using this solution for multiple purposes. For example, for a chatbot and for multiple authentications for service technologies we are developing.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of the solution are ease of use and the enhancements are continually being updated.
What needs improvement?
There could be more documentation and video tutorials to incorporate each and every feature. This way one can easily get the knowledge and implement it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for approximately three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have approximately 40 developers using the solution in my organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is good.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is a license for the solution.
What other advice do I have?
We plan to continue using the solution in the future and I recommend it to others.
I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Feature rich, reasonably priced, but more migration services needed
Pros and Cons
- "There are plenty of functions available that we have used extensively. It is a complete platform of services."
- "There was a time when the solution was updated on their side and all of our functions stopped working. This issue could be worked on to prevent it from happening in the future. They must give us the information of when they are going to updates on the platform side so that we can take the appropriate measures on our side as well."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution to integrate with multiple versions of ServiceNow, for automatic ticket closure and ticket opening.
What is most valuable?
There are plenty of functions available that we have used extensively. It is a complete platform of services.
What needs improvement?
There was a time when the solution was updated on their side and all of our functions stopped working. This issue could be worked on to prevent it from happening in the future.
They must give us the information of when they are going to updates on the platform side so that we can take the appropriate measures on our side as well.
We would like to see more enhancements in the Azure Migrate services in the future.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for approximately two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable and has good performance.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have all different kinds of clients, from small businesses to enterprises.
How was the initial setup?
The setup was straightforward and the documentation is good.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution is reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Microsoft Azure a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
Senior Manager Global Database Services at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
A dynamic and easy-to-use platform
Pros and Cons
- "Azure allows us to bring applications to life quickly."
- "Integration with other cloud environments can be tricky at times."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution to build VMs and create databases.
We absolutely plan to continue using Azure in the future. We actually plan on increasing our usage.
How has it helped my organization?
Azure allows us to bring applications to life quickly.
What is most valuable?
Microsoft Azure is very dynamic.
What needs improvement?
The cost is something that could be improved. There's not much clarity regarding the price range. We'll create a VM and then at the end of the month, we'll receive a bill with various costs from different locations — it's confusing.
Integration with other cloud environments can be tricky at times.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is very stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
The support could be improved. On a scale from one to ten, I would give their support a rating of six.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very complex because of the landing zone. Only Microsoft can create the landing zone. Implementation is very fast; it only takes a few minutes.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented Microsoft Azure ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing costs are quite reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is to keep an eye on your usage otherwise you could wind up with a hefty bill.
The biggest lesson I have learned is that Microsoft Azure is very dynamic — the environment is very dynamic.
Microsoft Azure is absolutely great. On a scale from one to ten, I would give it a rating of eight because it's user-friendly and very simple to use. All of the basic features are covered. Some things can be tricky, but there is always a simple solution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT strategist at Convergent Wireless Communications
A stable and scalable cloud computing solution with a useful set of functions
Pros and Cons
- "I like the functionalities and the price. I'm very satisfied with Microsoft Azure."
- "It could be cheaper."
What is our primary use case?
I'm using the entire Microsoft Azure suite for storage applications and database applications.
What is most valuable?
I like the functionalities and the price. I'm very satisfied with Microsoft Azure.
What needs improvement?
It could be cheaper.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Microsoft Azure for at least five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is scalable.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is good, but it can always be cheaper.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
The fact is I, as a customer or anybody else for that matter, will value the choices in front of them before deciding. In this case, the functionality on offer and the price helped us choose Microsoft Azure. If I get something better in terms of these two variables tomorrow, I will certainly switch.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to potential users.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Director of Technology at WinSoft IT, C.A.
Feature-rich, and the virtual machine support is good
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the virtual machine."
- "It is impossible to sell a cloud-based model here in Venezuela because we have strong inflation and most of our clients are immigrating to on-premises solutions."
What is our primary use case?
We are a solution provider and Azure is one of the products that we offer to our customers. However, there is a problem. It is impossible to sell a cloud-based model here in Venezuela because we have strong inflation and most of our clients are immigrating to on-premises solutions.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the virtual machine.
What needs improvement?
The pricing needs to be adjusted so that the strong inflation in Venezuela does not prevent customers from purchasing it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have a lot of experience with Microsoft. I started using Microsoft 25 years ago. I have used it in all aspects, both on-premises and soon in Azure cloud.
This is not strongly done on-premises, but we have several approaches with Microsoft Azure.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have approached our clients about using Kubernetes or Docker because it's cheaper when inflation is considered.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are researching how we can migrate all old legacy applications using Docker. In Venezuela, the software installed with all of our clients is legacy.
We have clients with Windows Server 2003, 2008, and applications with older operating systems who need to move to the cloud, but it is impossible because the cloud doesn't support those operating system versions. For this reason, we are considering using Docker to encapsulate the applications to see if it is feasible to migrate to the cloud or if we require new equipment on-premises.
Most of their software is not updated and won't be able to migrate to the cloud.
What other advice do I have?
In Venezuela, we are having some problems with the economy regarding the exchange control with our currency.
The best Microsoft product in my opinion Azure Stack Hyper-Converged Infrastructure or Azure Stack HCI. It's for working in hybrid mode.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Engineer at a government with 10,001+ employees
Responsive technical support, scales applications well, and reliable
Pros and Cons
- "One of the features I have found to be valuable is the scale set feature."
- "There needs to be better data security. There are organizations that do not want their data to be submitted to Microsoft, they should have strong encryption."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for multi-factor authentification while sorting out the identities. We want to use this solution for as many applications for the authentification process.
What is most valuable?
One of the features I have found to be valuable is the scale set feature. We have been able to get good results scaling up and down our applications. Additionally, the dashboard is fuctional.
What needs improvement?
There needs to be better data security. There are organizations that do not want their data to be submitted to Microsoft, they should have strong encryption.
In the future, Microsoft should increase its data center percentage in Africa.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has been stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have found the scalability of the solution to be good. We have approximately 4,000 people using the solution in my organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
If we are having a hard time finding a solution to an issue the technical support has been very quick to respond.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward for me since I have done it before, for people new to installing it could experience some difficulty.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution does not offer very many free services which can become expensive. We are on an annual license.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Digital Strategy Manager at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Has a single sign-on functionality and a user friendly interface
Pros and Cons
- "I think the single sign-on functionality and the ease with which you can deposit things on the cloud have been valuable. Azure has very robust security functionalities and authentication features, which come with mobility, along with backup and credential checks."
- "Integration with other services could be much better."
What is our primary use case?
We have a complete Microsoft ecosystem. Azure comes with a variety of parts such as infrastructure as a service and platform as a service or SaaS. We are using it for infrastructure as a service and software as a service as well, so both SaaS and IaaS are being used.
All of our solutions are being deployed on the Azure server. We use the Azure authentication functionality across our organization, which is a single sign-on functionality, so it is Azure-based. We also are incorporating the DevOps framework, which, again, is being integrated to Azure. Our complete backbone is being moved to Azure, and most of our systems are moving to the cloud version.
What is most valuable?
I think the single sign-on functionality and the ease with which you can deposit things on the cloud have been valuable.
Azure has very robust security functionalities and authentication features, which come with mobility, along with backup and credential checks.
Scalability is also very robust because you can deploy the solutions on the go, and along with that, it provides you an ecosystem to integrate with the existing Microsoft products. For example, we have Power BI, and it's very nicely integrated with the Azure cloud version.
The interface is quite user friendly and intuitive. The reporting is perfect as well.
What needs improvement?
Integration with other services could be much better.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Azure for over two years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. As it is a Microsoft product, the reliability is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Because it's a cloud-based solution, scalability is not an issue at all. We currently have over 200 development team members using Microsoft Azure.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support staff have been responsive, and the support was good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was a bit complex. It was getting ruled out sometimes, but it was at a Pan-India level. So, it was expected to take some time; it took about 8 to 12 months. Overall, it was good.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I believe that we have a three-year license, and I'm happy with the pricing.
What other advice do I have?
I think Azure works best when you have the complete Microsoft ecosystem. Then, you get the real value out of it. In my firm, we have the complete enterprise licensing model. So, we have an integrated ecosystem, which provides a very collaborative way of working, along with the ease of creating.
If I were to rate Microsoft Azure on a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Enterprise architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Has fast cycle development time and good coupling with internal and external tools
Pros and Cons
- "The cycle development time is pretty fast, and there's very good coupling within the whole set of Microsoft tools, from database to the ETL engine, ingestion through Azure Data Factory, then modeling Synapse Analytics, and reporting through Power BI."
- "I think better accelerators and better tools that can be used to migrate and leverage the existing models and data schemas are needed."
What is our primary use case?
It could be used for overall migration from on-premises systems for data ingestion to data processing, data modeling, advanced analytics, and high-end reporting. Microsoft Azure can be used to move from conventional, on-premises relational and traditional data systems and big data systems to the cloud.
What is most valuable?
I have found cost advantage and faster execution to be valuable features. Overall, Microsoft products are budget-friendly.
The cycle development time is pretty fast, and there's very good coupling within the whole set of Microsoft tools, from the database to the ETL engine, ingestion through Azure Data Factory, then modeling with Synapse Analytics, and reporting through Power BI.
You also have the ability to integrate with external tools if required. For instance, if you don't want to model on Synapse Analytics, which is a Microsoft product, you can use Snowflake. So, it allows customers to adopt a hybrid approach of mix and match when needed.
What needs improvement?
As for improvement, I think better accelerators and better tools that can be used to migrate and leverage the existing models and data schemas are needed.
Also, on the ETL side, we can convert data pipelines that are already setup on-premises and business tools that already exist. If we can migrate and automate these into Azure faster, it would be great. I think a faster migration path will help. There is a lot of scope for improvement in this area.
Better reporting capabilities would be good also, because as of now, Microsoft Azure has its own path with Power BI. However, better integration with other enterprise reporting platforms would help.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Microsoft Azure for two to three years.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is good for all cloud platforms since it is at a global level. So, it is very professional.
How was the initial setup?
Installation is very fast and can take a few minutes to an hour. A lot of documentation is available, so it could be done in-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Microsoft Azure comes with a long-term license and trial licenses as well.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution at nine on a scale from one to ten.
The strategy we are employing is to adopt a hybrid approach rather than switching all at once. We are moving in small bits and having both environments for business continuity. Then, once we and the users are feeling more confident, we will totally switch to the cloud.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
CEO at CLIFURVA
Very stable infrastructure as a service with good technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is very stable for Windows setups."
- "The pricing needs to be a bit lower. It's an expensive solution right now."
What is our primary use case?
Right now we're designing our desktop solutions. I need, for example, to use a virtual desktop and I need to use infrastructure as a service. I am looking for other infrastructure as a service solutions as well,
What is most valuable?
We really like the infrastructure as a service and the data center as a service solution functionality.
The backup data center and the business compute solutions for Azure are good. There are a lot of good hybrid solutions with onsite and cloud solutions.
The solution is very easy to set up.
The solution is very stable for Windows setups.
The technical support on offer has been very good.
What needs improvement?
The pricing needs to be a bit lower. It's an expensive solution right now.
In future releases, I would like to see Microsoft offer personal desktop environments in a virtual solution. Citrix, for example, now offers this as an option.
For how long have I used the solution?
I only have some limited experience with the product. I've only been using it for about six months or so. It hasn't been that long.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
For the most part, the solution is stable. It's great with the Windows solution, however, with Linux and other operating systems, I hope that it's okay. I don't know for certain. I've never tried it with others. For Windows, it is very good. When the customer has all-Windows solutions everything is okay. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The companies we usually sell to are typically medium-sized. When it comes to scaling, the cloud solution is an elastic solution. I can scale it well. The customer can go up however high they want to go. The solution allows for that flexibility. It's easy to expand with the solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've reached out to technical support in the past. I understand that if I need them I can easily reach them. They are available and responsive. I'd say we are satisfied with our solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not difficult or complex. It's pretty straightforward. It's easy. A company shouldn't have any issue with the process.
We sell the solution to our clients and it takes six months to one year to deploy it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We would like to see Microsoft lower its prices a bit for their customers. It's a costly solution.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a Microsoft reseller.
I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using.
While we are currently using the on-premises deployment model, we are considering moving to the cloud.
I'd recommend the solution to other users and organizations. I'm already recommending it to various clients as a potential solution for them.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We're quite satisfied with the solution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Associate Manager at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
Straightforward documentation, flexible, and helpful technical support
Pros and Cons
- "I have found the solution to be flexible, easy to use, and the documents are straightforward to understand."
- "When we are doing transfers of records in large amounts, for example, petabytes of data or few long datasets, the performance should not degrade as it does."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for executing the ADF pipelines through the database port. We provide the scripts in the database, we run it, and it goes through the ADF pipeline. Afterward, through the database command, the ADF pipeline will run and push the data into Azure SQL.
What is most valuable?
I have found the solution to be flexible, easy to use, and the documents are straightforward to understand. For example, it is flexible, we have a single pipeline that has three phases, within approximately 15 minutes the records get transferred into this solution efficiently.
Additionally, the solution is well integrated with other solutions such as Power BI.
What needs improvement?
When we are doing transfers of records in large amounts, for example, petabytes of data or few long datasets, the performance should not degrade as it does. I am working on big data platforms like Informatica and others and even though there are terabytes of data being transferred it does it immediately. However, in this solution, I would like the performance to be there when building a large dataset to integrate the data.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for the past three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have found the solution to be scalable. We use Teradata for large data and we are building the pipelines for it, so far it has operated well. We have approximately 25 individuals using the solution in my organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is very good, if you have an issue they will be able to help.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Informatica in the past and it has some performance advantages compared to this solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution does require a license.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others and we are going to continue using it in the future. We have numerous clients switching to this solution.
I rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Software Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Excellent user interface and portal; provides great documentation
Pros and Cons
- "User interface and portal are great."
- "Azure calculator could be improved, there are issues with login synchronization."
What is our primary use case?
I'm currently trying to build a new product for my company using Microsoft Azure. Prior to that, I was using Microsoft Azure on the cloud to deploy microservices using specific Azure services to host the microservices. But the most common Azure services that we're using is the App Service and relational databases. In terms of the application, the first one was just the Microsoft Azure application and the second one was an integration with Elastic Stack. I'm a software architect.
What is most valuable?
The user interface offers a good experience, it's better than Azure itself. The portal is great. Microsoft Azure has very good documentation for any kind of technical person.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes the Azure Calculator doesn't have a good way to do a higher estimate, because for any organization there are sometimes issues with the application sites, but I know that the logs are not the real time and there are issues with login synchronization. It cam sometimes take more than five minutes for that information to reach the Azure application side. I'd like to see integration with other lifecycle managing rules because with Azure DevOps, it's straightforward, but the system is painful sometimes.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for nearly five years, the last 12 months in this new company.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In general, stability is good, but in the past month I had some issues with the connection to Azure resources, not just Microsoft Azure, but with Azure in general. Microsoft has an issue with its authentication system which has proved painful, because my applications were up and running, but I can't log in to make changes or see metrics. It's a lot better now, we've had the application down three or four times but it hasn't been critical.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is good, I haven't had any issues with their configuration. I think we have around 600 concurrent users.
How are customer service and technical support?
I haven't used Azure support. They have good documentation, although I sometimes think that the examples on GitHub aren't updated. On the whole, documentation is good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used AWS but we knew there was already a lot of experience with Microsoft Azure and their technologies and we wanted to use all the features for each service. Given that this is with government and the integration is with Microsoft Azure, we can use all the features and benefits of each service. Another issue is that they were using AWS with infrastructure as a service, but they redesigned this application to use software as a service and platform as a service. We dropped the use of infrastructure as a service and using the platform as a service, and it was estimated that it would cost less than with AWS.
How was the initial setup?
I think the initial setup is straightforward. I have around 20 microservices, so deployment took probably two weeks. It took longer than a previous implementation which took several hours.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did a quick check with cloud computing, but we didn't find anything really efficient outside of the Google Kubernetes Engine that was better than the Azure Kubernetes Service or the Kubernetes service in AWS. But it was just a quick check and it was documented.
What other advice do I have?
I can sometimes see that Microsoft has poor training, but to be honest the whole training thing isn't good at a technical level. They are designed to be the entrance point and show the way you can create a web portal and database. But if they could offer an in-depth technical solution of Azure services that would be good. It's possible that Google has something about it and they can offer better learning than Microsoft sometimes does. Reading through their documentation can take some time.
I rate this solution a nine out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solution Architect at KIAN company
Can be used for disaster recovery and business continuity
Pros and Cons
- "In terms of computer resource management and reduced cost, it is very, very effective. In large environments, it gives you a lot of flexibility to provide different services, like disaster recovery and business continuity with simple and great options because you don't have to spend a lot of time for maintenance, upgrades, and security."
- "I think Azure Active Directory and also the backup solutions provided in Azure need to be improved by Microsoft. The backup solution is not a very enterprise solution, and it is very simple. I think in comparison with other backup solutions like Nakivo and Veeam Backup, it can be improved to have a lot of options."
What is our primary use case?
It is great for computer resource management at reduced cost. Also in a large environment, it gives you a lot of flexibility to provide different services, like disaster recovery and business continuity.
What is most valuable?
In terms of computer resource management and reduced cost, it is very, very effective. In large environments, it gives you a lot of flexibility to provide different services, like disaster recovery and business continuity with simple and great options because you don't have to spend a lot of time for maintenance, upgrades, and security. Also, Microsoft Azure provides a lot of services that can be managed by Microsoft like NetApp and SQL Server on a database.
Microsoft Azure has services such as ACS, Azure Container Service. This is very useful for improvements in running applications in a scalable environment. You will not need to spend time building the cluster on-premises, and you can improve your clusters with a lot of administration options.
What needs improvement?
I think Azure Active Directory and also the backup solutions provided in Azure need to be improved by Microsoft. The backup solution is not a very enterprise solution, and it is very simple. I think in comparison with other backup solutions like Nakivo and Veeam Backup, it can be improved to have a lot of options.
Along with this, one of the lack of options in Azure is managing antiviruses in virtual machines in the Azure environment. For example, if we have a lot of virtual machines on-premises and have to migrate them in Azure, there is no handy tool for the central management of antivirus software in all virtual machines in Azure.
On-premises, we have a lot of options like Kaspersky, Norton, and a lot of others, but in the Azure environment, you are limited to Windows ATP.
Windows ATP solutions are limited and can be improved by Microsoft, specifically the central management of the GUI for configuring agents on virtual machines.
I think Microsoft Azure should provide more innovation and new services to get better performance in the market.
The documentation for how to connect to CLI could also be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Microsoft Azure for around three years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable and can be distributed to different regions.
How are customer service and technical support?
I'm not involved in using technical support because I directly work with an Azure architect on my team who is responsible for providing support and leading the team as well as contacting the Microsoft support team. In general, however, I think, one of the best advantages of Microsoft services is the support team made up of technical engineers who help solve problems.
How was the initial setup?
As for the initial setup, the GUI in Microsoft is very simple and very handy, but in Azure Container Service, it is not very handy and is very complex. You would need to go forward with CLI.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft Azure at eight on a scale from one to ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Technical Pre-Sales at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Flexible, scalable, stable, and easy to deploy
Pros and Cons
- "It is quick and easy to deploy. It is flexible, and we can deploy a resource anytime. We like and prefer the pay-as-you-go model."
- "Its pricing should be better. In terms of features, I am yet to explore the whole solution, and the current features seem okay."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for virtual machines.
What is most valuable?
It is quick and easy to deploy. It is flexible, and we can deploy a resource anytime.
We like and prefer the pay-as-you-go model.
What needs improvement?
Its pricing should be better. In terms of features, I am yet to explore the whole solution, and the current features seem okay.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is quite scalable. You can extend it both vertically and horizontally very quickly. Currently, we have approximately 50 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
We haven't had support issues.
How was the initial setup?
It is easy and quick to deploy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It has the pay-as-you-go model. Its pricing should be better.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We didn't evaluate other solutions. We trusted Azure because it is a Microsoft product, and Microsoft has been in the industry for a long time. Microsoft has been providing solutions for businesses for a long time, whereas other vendors mostly provide solutions for consumers.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. We plan to keep using it.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Junior Mobile Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
A user-friendly cloud computing service that's highly scalable
Pros and Cons
- "It's easy to use, and it's scalable. If we want to grow our product more, we can do it."
- "Security could be better. Once there was an attack, and we couldn't get to the cloud to see the reports for about five hours."
What is our primary use case?
We have a project with a company that needs support for their IoT devices. We're setting up some databases for them. That's all I can say about it because it's confidential. But we're using the HSM and the Key Vault for security purposes. A wider area or a wider group can connect to this public cloud for security and storage. We also have our own application implemented on that cloud.
What is most valuable?
It's easy to use, and it's scalable. If we want to grow our product more, we can do it. Because of the availability of different geographic zones, we can also have many places and regions.
What needs improvement?
Security could be better. Once there was an attack, and we couldn't get to the cloud to see the reports for about five hours. If we want to back up the application in storage, we can't have a firewall. For now, it's secure. I think the main problem was the configuration.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for three or four months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Access to the virtual machine on Azure wasn't always available, but the application was always up and running.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product is super scalable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is better than AWS.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this cloud computing solution. When configured and planned well, I think it's a very good product.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Head Of Information Technology at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
A cloud computing service that makes remote working a seamless experience
Pros and Cons
- "I like a lot of features. For example, the Windows virtual solution has helped in such a way that our client-based application was converted into a web-based version through the use of the Windows Virtual Desktop."
- "With Microsoft, our only concern is exchange rates because we're paying in dollars. It's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates. It would help if they partnered with someone locally so we can pay in our local currency."
What is our primary use case?
We have some services that are customer-facing that was put on a public cloud. We also have some of the applications that we use in-house, and we put that in our private environment.
Currently, because we have migrated our infrastructure to the cloud, we boosted some of our core applications in the Windows virtual environment. We also make use of it for our call center solution.
What is most valuable?
I like a lot of features. For example, the Windows virtual solution has helped in such a way that our client-based application was converted into a web-based version through the use of the Windows Virtual Desktop. It makes life very easy for our users when working remotely from anywhere. Because of Azure, the work from home policy makes our work feel seamless. We make use of SharePoint, and collaboration has been very smooth and wonderful. We also make use of Microsoft Teams. It's been wonderful. It's been very awesome.
What needs improvement?
With Microsoft, our only concern is exchange rates because we're paying in dollars. It's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates. It would help if they partnered with someone locally so we can pay in our local currency. That's the only major area that we wanted them to look into. At least for exchange rate purposes, they should try to do something.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have just migrated our infrastructure. I have been using Microsoft Azure for a couple of months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I can guarantee that it's 100% reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's very easy, and we don't regret this step at all. It's very scalable, and sometimes if we don't need the VM that we set up, we can quickly decommission it. Then if you wanted it back up again, we could bring it up quickly. It's very scalable. We have an average of 50 users at the moment.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is very good. I like that they have local partners and local support in our own country and not someone in another geographical region. When we wanted to do the setup with the Microsoft partner, we had some issues, and we reported it to them. They were very responsive.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was straightforward because Microsoft had some partners here. To be a good Microsoft partner, you would have done a lot of training with all this stuff, making our deployment and migrations very seamless.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We're paying in dollars, and it's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates. We have all kinds of agreements with the partner, and we'll be paying quarterly. But it depends on how you want to pay. It depends on the option that's flexible for you.
What other advice do I have?
We would recommend this solution to potential users. I would advise them to analyze the infrastructure and what they want to achieve. After that, they should be able to get across to a good partner.
That will help them a lot because they would need a good supportive partner. Migration can be very miserable, so they should consider a good partner. They should also have their own internal strategy on what they want to achieve. This will help the partners help them.
We wanted to do a whole lot of things that cost us even more. But because we were able to get a reliable partner, they were able to guide us very well, and we were able to get some significant cost savings.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure a ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Enterprise Technology Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Can be used to modernize environments and reduce the time spent on building infrastructures
Pros and Cons
- "I think the most useful feature has been the remote desktop. It has been very helpful when customers have old applications that are not architected to run remotely."
- "In my opinion, what could be improved is making the actual costs more predictable. It is very difficult to estimate the cost or the budget you are going to need to run your environment in Azure Cloud. You have to be a specialist to understand how you will be charged, which constantly changes."
What is our primary use case?
We have been using it to modernize customers' environments. We propose that the customers consider moving a number of things into the public cloud instead of building and maintaining everything on-premise.
How has it helped my organization?
The organization can focus more on real business problems instead of IT problems. It can also reduce the time spent setting up the infrastructure. This then makes the organization more agile and, in a lot of cases, more reliable. With the public cloud, if your design is okay, the chance of running into a serious outage is, in most cases, lower than that when relying on your own on-premise IT infrastructure, particularly in the case of companies with 50 to 500 people that typically don't have very big IT budgets.
What is most valuable?
I think the most useful feature has been the remote desktop. It has been very helpful when customers have old applications that are not architected to run remotely.
What needs improvement?
In my opinion, what could be improved is making the actual costs more predictable. It is very difficult to estimate the cost or the budget you are going to need to run your environment in Azure Cloud. You have to be a specialist to understand how you will be charged, which constantly changes.
As for additional features, it would be great if the pricing could be cheaper for those trying to study and use the cloud. Having a discounted pricing scheme or even a free usage scheme, like a sandbox that is free to use on a continuous basis, for those who are studying would help them to actually generate more business later on. The more people learn to use the clouds, the more business they will actually attract.
They will start pushing solutions into the cloud, but if they have no time or opportunity to learn to use it, they will not be confident in proposing cloud solutions. So until they have been able to validate it in a test environment or a learning environment, they won't take the risk and propose a cloud solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been involved with this solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I think Microsoft Azure is fairly stable. It also depends on how you set up your design.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As advertised, the scalability should never be an issue. The only thing that would stop you from scaling would be that your application has an architecture that is not scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
For public clouds, customer service/technical support is okay. In general, the documentation is very good.
How was the initial setup?
For those who are familiar with Azure, the initial setup is not that complex. However, for those who are using Azure for the first time, it's probably a bit more involved because they may need to create their own virtual data centers in the cloud with the necessary security measures. I think that often this is a bit underestimated mostly because of a lack of knowledge on the part of the new customer.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Software licensing models can be expensive depending on what you need compared to open source solutions, for example. However, if you don't have the technical skills, you may be better off paying for a license and support instead of trying to use open source solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft Azure at eight on a scale from one to ten.
I would advice others to take the time to study it carefully because there's a lot to understand and a lot to know before putting a solution in the clouds. Don't underestimate the complexity.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Information Technology Consultant at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Extremely scalable with the capability to build an environment in minutes and offers good automation
Pros and Cons
- "The product scales extremely well."
- "They need to make storage easy and offer more interconnectivity between solutions."
What is our primary use case?
I primarily used the solution for hypothetical cases. I used the solution to look at the 2019 active directory environment, some remote SQL storage, and storage access from on-premises to the cloud.
What is most valuable?
There's a feature for automated tasks. As an administrator, handling administrative-type tasks, it's quite useful. For example, I was spending lots of money when I would spin things up. I'd spin up a SQL server. I'd spin up different types of things. They cost a lot of money. I would get distracted, walk away, and go to bed. I'd get up in the morning, and I'd see I'd have a bill. Therefore, I spun up an automated task and wrote a PowerShell script, put it in an automated task, and it would run at seven o'clock every night, and delete all my resources. It saved me money.
You can build an environment in minutes. It's very good in terms of being an infrastructure as a service, and I found that really fascinating.
All the devices they have up there that replace existing devices in the real world like load balancers or F5 are helpful. I'm not sure how they relate or how they form compared to F5, or the firewalls compare to the ones that are in data centers, however, they looked all right to me.
The solution is mostly stable.
The product scales extremely well.
What needs improvement?
It's a bit of a mystery how the storage is going to perform. For example, when you've got a storage device like Hitachi or NetApp, you can run reports on that storage and you can do all this good stuff. I'm not sure if that's the case with Azure. A lot of the stuff is kind of proprietary, at the moment.
The cost is quite high.
You can't control the data as much as you would like to. When it's theirs, it's theirs. With Hitachi, Hitachi has its own policies. You can move data around based on how much it's used into lower-cost discs and whatnot. You might be able to do that with Azure. However, I can't verify that.
The initial setup is complex.
They need to make storage easy and offer more interconnectivity between solutions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for about a year or so. Maybe a year and a half at most. It hasn't been that long.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of stability, I've seen it go down twice now. They've had two problems with the active directory. That said, I would describe it as stable. They have different sites, regions, and whatnot, where you can move your data around in case you lose a data center or you lose a region. However, if you lose the active directory, that can take everything down.
It's not any more stable than an enterprise environment, to be honest. Maybe a little bit, however, if you lose a network connection to it, that's not stable.
I worked in a bank, a huge 50,000 employee enterprise. I saw their infrastructure go up and down about the same, once or twice a year. That's about the same as Azure, therefore, it's not anything different than an enterprise. You can make an enterprise resilient if you have lots of domain controllers and you do lots of redundant paths.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is very scalable. It's one of its great selling points. If a company needs to scale, it can do so with ease.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've never been in touch with technical support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are.
How was the initial setup?
For a layperson or someone who is not trained, it wasn't an easy initial setup. It had some complexities.
I've personally gotten used to the process. The deployment, for example, wouldn't take that long now. While in the beginning, a deployment might take a month, now that I am more comfortable with the solution and more familiar, I can likely do it in a few days.
That said, it depends on a company's plans and its own unique environment and complexities. It can vary. Most people seem to struggle with all of the connections they had before.
The number of people you need to deploy or maintain the solution really depends on the size of the environment. After implementation, you could probably scale back your employees from 10% to 50% with Azure.
What about the implementation team?
I can handle an implementation myself. I'm getting better and faster at it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I've found the cost to be a bit high. You also get dinged for extra things along the way.
The charges are also unpredictable. Even if you think something is a relatively static item, they'll charge you for it and it will change your expectation of the cost.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I've looked at other solutions, such as Hitachi and Netapp.
The biggest struggle a person would have these days, as an architect, is to determine what the cost-benefit of going to Azure would be rather than going to a storage device such as a Hitachi or a NetApp. Which has better value? What's going to be better in the next couple of years? You can really get screwed if you're going to be pulling data down from the cloud. If you pull a lot of data from the cloud, it's going to cost you. You don't get charged for putting it up. You get charged for pulling it down.
What other advice do I have?
I basically used the solution to study.
I used a few different deployment models. I made an on-prem environment, Hyper-V environment, on my laptop and I connected it to the cloud.
I'd advise those considering the solution to not put all of their eggs in one basket. By that, I mean, it's a good idea to go hybrid and not full cloud. Going hybrid covers that network loss that you could suffer if you lose the network. If you lost a data center or a region, you could still have your on-prem server running an image of the cloud onsite.
I'd give the solution an eight out of ten. I haven't had a chance to study AWS or Google, however, I like this solution very much.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Chief Technology Officer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
A straightforward, resilient, and scalable solution that does everything I want it to do
Pros and Cons
- "Its resiliency is most valuable. It is also a very scalable solution, so you can spend the resources on demand."
- "The interface for configuring the environment is not very intuitive. Certain things are at different places, and it is not easy to navigate. They should have a more transparent licensing model. Currently, Microsoft's licensing is a bit clunky, and it keeps changing depending on the type of subscription you have. Different features are included, and sometimes, it is very hard to figure out the right licensing. So, the commercial aspect of the licensing can be improved, and they can make it easier to understand all the features that are included."
What is our primary use case?
We just use it as a virtual environment.
How has it helped my organization?
It has been good financially because no CapEx investment is required for any of the on-prem infrastructures. It is an OPEX model, so it is easy for budgeting.
What is most valuable?
Its resiliency is most valuable. It is also a very scalable solution, so you can spend the resources on demand.
What needs improvement?
The interface for configuring the environment is not very intuitive. Certain things are at different places, and it is not easy to navigate.
They should have a more transparent licensing model. Currently, Microsoft's licensing is a bit clunky, and it keeps changing depending on the type of subscription you have. Different features are included, and sometimes, it is very hard to figure out the right licensing. So, the commercial aspect of the licensing can be improved, and they can make it easier to understand all the features that are included.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for about a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I can't complain.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a very scalable solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
Thankfully, I didn't have to use support. We have a CSP, and we are dealing with our partner who deals with Microsoft on our behalf.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am not sure, but I think this is the first cloud infrastructure that we have used.
How was the initial setup?
It has a pretty straightforward deployment. There are just a couple of clicks. The deployment takes about a day.
What about the implementation team?
We used the reseller.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Price-wise, it is comparable to other solutions for the features that we are using.
What other advice do I have?
It is pretty straightforward. I would advise others to just make sure that you have an architecture that you want to implement. You need to understand what you want to achieve in order to build or configure the platform correctly. The infrastructure, architecture, and design are very important to fully understand what resource groups do you want to use because you're building around the resource groups. That's pretty much it.
We are thinking of increasing the usage of the cloud, and I'm looking at alternatives. After all the research is done, we will see if it is going to be Azure or something else.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a ten out of ten because it is doing everything I want it to do, and I don't really have a comparison with other similar products.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior System Administrator at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Easy to use, scales well, and the technical support is good
Pros and Cons
- "This product is quite easy to use and is available on-demand."
- "There are so many services available that the interface is a little bit messy, and when you're looking for a specific service, you have to know exactly where to search."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Active Directory in Azure, so it's for all of the Office 365 services.
What is most valuable?
This product is quite easy to use and is available on-demand.
What needs improvement?
There are so many services available that the interface is a little bit messy, and when you're looking for a specific service, you have to know exactly where to search. Having better visibility in the interface would be an improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Azure for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a stable product and we plan to continue using it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Azure is a scalable solution. We have approximately 150 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have used technical support and it is very good.
How was the initial setup?
As a cloud-based product, there is no installation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This is an expensive product.
What other advice do I have?
In summary, this is a good solution, and other than some improvements to the user interface, I cannot think of any features that are missing.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
System Administrator and DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Competitively priced, but the interface needs to be more user-friendly
Pros and Cons
- "It's a cloud service, so it's always up to date."
- "If you compare it with AWS, it is not very friendly to use. I find the UI better to work with on AWS."
What is our primary use case?
It's similar to AWS.
It's an infrastructure as a service.
What is most valuable?
It's a cloud service, so it's always up to date.
What needs improvement?
If you compare it with AWS, it is not very friendly to use. I find the UI better to work with on AWS.
They easily provide service with Windows, but not with Linux.
For how long have I used the solution?
I am a beginner, and only been using Microsoft Azure for a couple of months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is pretty stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a scalable product. Because it's a cloud service, there is an infinite opportunity for scaling.
We only have one or two people who are using this solution in our organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
I reached out to support once, but they were not that quick to respond.
Technical support could be faster.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have experience with AWS and Microsoft Azure is not that friendly. It is a bit complicated compared to AWS.
How was the initial setup?
It's a cloud service. There is no installation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is expensive, but it is less expensive than AWS.
Even with it being cheaper than AWS, the price could be cheaper.
It is similar to AWS, where it is on-demand and is billed monthly.
What other advice do I have?
We are not currently using this solution and we are not sure if we will be using it in the future.
For those who are connected to the Windows Operating System, I would recommend this product. However, I would not recommend it for a Linux environment.
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Product Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Enables great scalability and lets us easily deploy applications to the cloud
Pros and Cons
- "With Microsoft Azure, we have a platform that lets us easily deploy applications to the cloud."
- "They should create integrations with more platforms."
What is our primary use case?
We use it to host virtual machines and migrate new web applications to the cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
With Microsoft Azure, we have a platform that lets us easily deploy applications to the cloud.
What needs improvement?
They should create integrations with more platforms.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for a couple of years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It enables great scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
We are satisfied with the support from Microsoft.
How was the initial setup?
It was quite easy to setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The current pricing is on a pay-as-you-go subscription.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Head of Department at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Easy to use, scales well, good interface, and provisioning a server is fast
Pros and Cons
- "Provisioning a server is fast, taking only one or two minutes before it is ready."
- "At this point, the latency is too high to use Azure in our production environment."
What is our primary use case?
We have a private cloud, but we are interested in having a hybrid cloud that includes Microsoft Azure. This use of it as an Infrastructure as a Service will help us to expand our scale using our hardware.
Primarily, we use Azure to test services and solutions that we want to use on the public cloud. Nothing in production is being used on Azure yet because of latency.
What is most valuable?
Azure is helpful when you want to set up a server, such as a Linux test server. For example, we can transfer our code to the test server and do a comparison.
This solution is easy to use. It has quite a good interface for things like provisioning a server.
Provisioning a server is fast, taking only one or two minutes before it is ready. In our private cloud, this process still takes longer.
What needs improvement?
At this point, the latency is too high to use Azure in our production environment.
I would like to see support for data streaming in the future because I understand that currently, data streaming is not there. It would work like Kafka does, in Microsoft Azure. If they can provide the Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service, it will be better.
For example, if want to use Kafka, I should be able to purchase Microsoft Azure and then use my Kafka license. This would also give me support. Right now, using it requires first getting a server through Infrastructure as a Service, then getting a Kafka license, then installing the server in the cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
We started using Microsoft Azure last year.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Azure is a scalable product. We are not using it extensively yet because we just started exploring it for use as a testing server. However, if we are satisfied with the security and issues with latency then we are going to set up performance tests.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have not had any issues with support. The interface is quite user-friendly, so we have not needed to contact them. I think that they do have assistance available for onboarding, or creating a server.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did evaluate other solutions but that is the job of another team in the company. I was only told that we also tried Google Cloud.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. Microsoft Azure provides an easy interface to log in and create a server.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is flexible. Our company engaged in negotiations to get a better price, which resulted in a two-year contract.
It seems that the cost of using the service in the short term is definitely good. However, in the long-term it is different. The long-term cost is higher than if you set up the servers on-premises, which is something that could be improved through more competitive pricing.
What other advice do I have?
Our usage is rather limited right now but for what we use it for, the product is quite good and we are satisfied with the services. This is a product that I can recommend for anybody who does not want to invest a lot of money in their own hardware.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
Future Datacenter Consultant: Microsoft Azure Cloud. at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Great environment assessment tools and monitoring features with pretty good scalability
Pros and Cons
- "The user interface is very nice and makes everything easy to use."
- "Support could be improved. If you pay for a higher plan, it's okay, however, the lower plans don't offer as good of a service experience."
What is our primary use case?
The solution is basically a platform as a service for web applications, virtual machines, Azure identity, et cetera.
My day-to-day is to migrate servers using Mover or some other app to access on-premises data centers. We then use Azure Migrate to move the servers in order to take advantage of the new functionalities and things like that.
What is most valuable?
The solution offers good monitoring features that allow us to configure items better in the customer environment. The monitoring is really awesome.
Occasionally, clients have specific requirements for their applications and we can move them onto Azure services or apps.
Overall, it offers a better way to move the applications and monitor or configure the applications with higher availability. For example, there are load balancers, different types of layers that load balancers use, traffic managers, Front Door, and things of that nature that are available to us and the client via Azure.
Overall, I like how the solution works. It offers everything I need, for the most part.
The user interface is very nice and makes everything easy to use.
The power share modules have been improved, and the AC module was introduced - which has been great. There are ten or 15 more regions on the way as well.
The tools on offer are excellent. It has some really great environment assessment tools as well.
What needs improvement?
There are preview features we are waiting on. When I contact Microsoft support, there is no timeline given or clear information about when those preview features are going to be on GA, general availability. It would be ideal if they could finally give us at least an estimation of how much longer we have to wait.
Support could be improved. If you pay for a higher plan, it's okay, however, the lower plans don't offer as good of a service experience. It also seems as though each different tier doesn't talk to the other. they should be able to communicate and share details internally with each other so that they are learning from each other instead of staying siloed.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for the last few years. I would estimate it's been about five years at this point. It's been a while. I've definitely been using the solution over the last 12 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of stability, for me, it works. However, depends on the type of project that's happening. If you're going to have just a virtual machine running there then it can fail. That said, the platform offers a lot of options to improve the capability, so it depends on how much money a client wants to invest.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability works just fine. I've had some issues before with Azure App Service, with an App Service environment allocation, however, Microsoft has improved that, making a bigger rack. Since then, I haven't seen issues with scalability. That was maybe a year ago.
We currently have three clients on Microsoft Azure.
How are customer service and technical support?
There is room for improvement with technical support. I work with premium support and therefore don't really face issues. We have good engineers. There are some issues when you get a new support person. They have a lot of rotation in their personnel. They train people for a couple of months. They're trying to help however, it's not the same as getting a seasoned professional. It really depends on the support line you buy. If you go for a lower tier, you're likely to get less experienced assistance.
How was the initial setup?
For the most part, the initial setup is straightforward. It was not overly complex. I worked with a Microsoft support engineer. I had contact with the product group and know the technical advisors and technical matters, which made it very easy for me.
For example, in comparison. I tried to use Amazon Web Services by myself, and I got confused as I didn't have that level of support. With Azure, the interface is nice, and it's pretty straightforward. Anybody with a little bit of technical knowledge about working, virtual machines, or similar items can use it with little to no problem. The implementation is pretty good.
The time it takes to deploy the solution depends on the customer environment. If they have 25 servers versus five there will be radically different deployment times.
Typically, we use Microsoft strategies as a foundation assessment. We'll look at the customer environment and be in the background for a couple of weeks to pull some data so we can have a better understanding of the customer environment. After that, we create a plan to start migrating the servers. Each client is unique.
What about the implementation team?
I worked alongside a Microsoft support engineer who assisted in the process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
You do need to pay for technical support and there are different tiers of support you can get. The higher the tier, it seems, the better the service you can expect.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I haven't used AWS or Google Cloud, therefore I don't really ever compare this solution to them. I don't say "this platform has that and I like how this works". For me, Azure just works and it's fine and I don't need to go in-depth and look at other options.
The company I am working at new does use AWS and we're planning to introduce new cloud technologies as well.
I'm not a salesperson, however, I can say that we would move the client to whichever technology made sense to them after doing an evaluation of their requirements. That, of course, is handled by a different department.
What other advice do I have?
We are a reseller and a Microsoft Gold partner. We are a CSP, a Cloud Solution Provider. We offer managed services to our customers. We are moving data centers to Azure, however, we are a managed service provider. We have access to the customer's environment in order to pull analytics data to help them with consulting services, and things like that.
My basic advice to those considering the solution is that planning is essential. Microsoft does a good job of advising their customers at the outset to ensure they get what they need, however, it's helpful to go in and understand deeply what it is your company needs overall.
That said, Azure is a strong cloud and its technology is great. Microsoft offers good implementation with service legal agreements and good practices.
Overall, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Flexible, scalable and has very good performance
Pros and Cons
- "The solution has proven to be quite stable so far."
- "The solution needs to offer more data analysis services."
What is our primary use case?
It's primarily used for access to the cloud or the virtual machines and to have a cloud-based solution that can handle tasks such as data processing, or for having data storage, and all types of other things.
What is most valuable?
The product is very flexible.
The performance overall is great.
It's a great advantage for a company to be on the cloud. It gives a company nice advantages.
The solution has proven to be quite stable so far.
The solution has been scalable.
There are no new releases per se; the solution simply adds on more services over time.
What needs improvement?
The solution needs to offer more data analysis services. It would be extremely helpful to Azure's clients if they had more of this.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for about a year or so. I believe it's been around 12 months. It hasn't been that long.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution has been very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
So far, we've found the scalability to be pretty good. If a company needs to expand, it can do so with ease.
We have about five people working directly on the solution currently.
How are customer service and technical support?
We haven't really dealt with technical support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are. I've never had any direct interactions with them personally.
How was the initial setup?
There isn't really an initial setup. It's on the cloud. You don't really have to deploy anything or set anything up.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Our customers don't have to pay any licensing fees in order to use Azure.
What other advice do I have?
As we are on the cloud deployment model, we're always on the latest version of the solution. It is always automatically updated for us.
Overall, I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been pretty happy with its capabilities so far.
In general, I would recommend the solution to other organizations.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Enterprise Architect at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
A scalable cloud computing service with valuable automation features
Pros and Cons
- "I think Azure's level of automation to achieve efficiency or agility is valuable. I also like the change capability cadence, the showback capabilities, and understanding what our costs are."
- "We like that they have the new capabilities, but sometimes they're deprecating capabilities faster than we can handle. If we had to improve it, we would want to stay on some of these older capabilities a bit longer."
What is our primary use case?
Our use cases are basically cost agility and efficiency.
How has it helped my organization?
Microsoft Azure really enforces the automation capabilities of our workforce. It drives us towards a new operating model in terms of delivering services more quickly and more automatically.
What is most valuable?
I think Azure's level of automation to achieve efficiency or agility is valuable. I also like the change capability cadence, the showback capabilities, and understanding what our costs are. We don't have that in our on-premise environment. That whole showback capability is very interesting for us. It helps to hold the stakeholders accountable for our spending.
What needs improvement?
Talking about improvement is like a double-edged sword. We like that they have the new capabilities, but sometimes they're deprecating capabilities faster than we can handle. If we had to improve it, we would want to stay on some of these older capabilities a bit longer. It's a brilliant platform for our staff to be more agile and more efficient but probably doesn't match with us in terms of maturity.
For example, they offer this tagging capability, but they keep introducing new platforms without it. We've become heavily reliant on tagging, but in the case of NetApp, they introduced it into the environment, and now we're not able to get the showback off of that.
If they introduce new capabilities, they have to have all the features and functions on that new capability. They're not very good at that. If they introduce new capabilities, all the feature sets on these new capabilities should be available immediately. From my perspective, that's where they need to improve.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Azure for about a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is very scalable. Our data center staff are using the solution, and then the application teams are engaging the data center staff to use that solution. We've just had a few use cases in there, and now we're just gaining experience.
Like with any new technology, we're currently re-skilling staff. It's the way we're approaching it on a six to 12-month journey before we start to get to the product and the benefits.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is average.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup isn't straightforward. You need to bring in an experienced system integrator to help you with the knowledge transfer. That's the approach we took.
What about the implementation team?
We brought in an experienced system integrator that helped us build the environment and did the knowledge transfer into our workforce. I think that's a requirement. We had a very positive experience with our system integrator. The setup, we call it the Azure landing zone, and it's the data center. To set up the foundational build was a three-month engagement.
The system integrator is the intermediary between Microsoft and us. That's the value proposition of a system integrator. The system integrator helps cut through some of that. Microsoft is a big organization, and it's sometimes very hard to get to the right resources with the right knowledge. The challenge with Microsoft is that they have multiple solutions, and it's up to you to pick the right solution path. That's very hard for most organizations to do.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's a metered environment, and it's pay-as-you-go. That's the big challenge with a metered environment. The challenge is optimizing how you use that to reduce your meter costs. It's like your children have to be good at not leaving the lights on in their bedroom to save on the power bill. That's a cultural change.
You have to change your consumption patterns, and that's hard to do. You can get a very big bill because your consumption patterns aren't very good. We're no different than any other organization that's gone to a public cloud. You get these surprise bills, and then you've got to figure out how to manage them down appropriately.
For us, the additional cost is connectivity to the Azure data center. They said that we had to set up an Equinix data center to get from our location here in Regina, Saskatchewan, to Toronto down East. Those are some big new communication charges that we didn't have before.
That adds a significant cost to that. Private internet connectivity to a cloud is a big expense. That can be a very big cost, especially for remote businesses that are co-located to cloud data centers.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Microsoft Azure was a strategic choice. We wanted to go with a multi-cloud model, but we felt like we didn't know enough about clouds. We just kind of thought Microsoft was one of our strategic partners and decided to go with them and learn before we took the multi-cloud approach.
What other advice do I have?
The advice I would give potential users would be to focus on their cost management skills and metering skills. It's all about managing your consumption. You've got to understand your consumption patterns and then learn how to manage consumption patterns going forward.
It's a really good product. In terms of leading hyperscalers, they offer very competitive features, functions, and rates compared to AWS and Google. They continue to advance their technical capabilities as rapidly or more rapidly than the other two hyperscalers. So, I would rate Microsoft Azure very high.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure a nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Data Science Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Good stability with good Databricks integration and comparable in price to AWS
Pros and Cons
- "The integration with Databricks is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
- "The design of the platform is not so easy to navigate. It's not very user-friendly."
What is our primary use case?
We use Microsoft Azure for blob storage and for a lot of the components that they have inside the cloud.
What is most valuable?
The integration with Databricks is the most valuable aspect of the solution. It's easy to use and to put on the pipeline. Data Factory and Databricks together build a pipeline. They really integrate very well.
The stability is very good.
The solution is comparable to AWS in terms of pricing.
What needs improvement?
The design of the platform is not so easy to navigate. It's not very user-friendly.
Some services are more difficult to use in AWS and GCP. I have projects on the three clouds, and some things are easier to do on AWS. On the other hand, using Databricks on Azure is easy, as they are integrated well. However, some products are more difficult to use than other products.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability has been good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable in terms of performance.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have about 30 people using the solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
I don't really deal with technical support. I'm the data scientist manager. The engineering team would be the ones that would reach out for help if they needed support.
How was the initial setup?
In terms of deployment, each product requires a number of staff to deploy the model of machine learning or to build the stature to consume the data. It really depends.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't handle the licensing or payments aspect of the solution. I can't speak to the costs involved or what the license looks like.
In AWS, our monthly cost was something around $10,000 or something close to that. We had to pay around $120,000 a year. It's most likely something close to that.
What other advice do I have?
We are a customer and end-user. We don't have a business relationship with Microsoft.
We deployed the solution in multiple ways. We've used the solution both on-premises and on the cloud.
I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solution Architect at a sports company with 201-500 employees
Stable with a good application gateway and helpful technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The product has been quite stable."
- "The solution should emulate what MuleSoft is doing. At the moment MuleSoft has a lot of other features compared to Azure API integration."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution as a platform for our applications and security.
What is most valuable?
The application gateway is very good.
We like the WAF feature.
The product has been quite stable.
The scalability potential is very good.
Technical support is very good.
The configuration process is very minimal and happens very quickly.
What needs improvement?
The solution should emulate what MuleSoft is doing. At the moment MuleSoft has a lot of other features compared to Azure API integration. Just the coverage of the features, for example, could improve. Azure should offer more coverage of the features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution scales very well. If a company needs to expand it, they can.
We have about 1,000 users on the solution currently.
We do have plans to continue to use the solution and may even increase usage in the future.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support has been good overall. They are helpful and responsive. We are satisfied with the level of service we receive.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I don't really have experience with other solutions at this time. I typically work with Azure.
How was the initial setup?
There isn't much of an implementation process as the solution is in the cloud.
However, you do need to do some configurations in order to ensure it's set up as you need it to be. This part of the process takes a minimal amount of time.
We have about 60 to 70 people who can handle deployment and maintenance within our organization.
What about the implementation team?
While I could handle the process myself, in our case, we had a network architect handle the configuration process.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a consultant.
As we are using the cloud version of the solution, we are always using the latest version as well. It updates automatically.
I'd recommend the solution to other organizations.
I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Co-Founder and CEO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Easy to use, stable, and affordable
Pros and Cons
- "It is easy to use. It is also stable."
- "Its subscription price could be cheaper."
What is our primary use case?
We are using it for disaster recovery and application hosting. We always have its latest version because it is cloud-based.
What is most valuable?
It is easy to use. It is also stable.
What needs improvement?
Its subscription price could be cheaper.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have about 40 users of this solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is fine.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Google Cloud. We switched because we're a Microsoft Partner.
How was the initial setup?
I didn't do the installation, but its installation is easy. For its deployment and maintenance, we have two engineers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is affordable, but its subscription price could be cheaper.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others. I would rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Founder at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
A stable and easy to use cloud computing solution
Pros and Cons
- "It is very easy to use, especially if it is on the servers. Also, I have found it to be easier to use than AWS. It is a stable and scalable product as well. I think it is also secure."
- "I think the cloud interface could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
I installed it to perform some tests and use it on the Microsoft servers.
How has it helped my organization?
I used Microsoft Azure to run some tests and found it to be easy to use, particularly on the Microsoft servers. I use AWS on the Linux servers.
What is most valuable?
It is very easy to use, especially if it is on the servers. Also, I have found it to be easier to use than AWS.
It is a stable and scalable product as well. I think it is also secure.
What needs improvement?
I think the cloud interface could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a very stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I think Microsoft Azure is a scalable solution.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment process was easy and straightforward. It took about 10 minutes.
What about the implementation team?
I installed the solution myself because I was performing some tests.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I currently use the pay-as-you-go option.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate this solution at eight. It is a very stable and secure product.
It is also easier to use than AWS.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Manager at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Easy to use, very scalable, and powerful in terms of data backup and Blob storage
Pros and Cons
- "It is a very easy-to-use platform, and it is very powerful in terms of data backup and Blob storage. It has very good features, especially if you are using Microsoft products, such as Windows, Microsoft SQL Server."
- "They should optimize their pricing so that we can use more features. I would also like to see more auditing and more security for the Blob storage feature. From a technical point, it has very good features for Microsoft products, but for non-Microsoft products, it may have some limitations. I have mostly worked with Windows-based integration, and now I am trying to use it for open-source systems. It is good but not as easy as Microsoft products."
What is most valuable?
It is a very easy-to-use platform, and it is very powerful in terms of data backup and Blob storage. It has very good features, especially if you are using Microsoft products, such as Windows, Microsoft SQL Server.
What needs improvement?
They should optimize their pricing so that we can use more features. I would also like to see more auditing and more security for the Blob storage feature.
From a technical point, it has very good features for Microsoft products, but for non-Microsoft products, it may have some limitations. I have mostly worked with Windows-based integration, and now I am trying to use it for open-source systems. It is good but not as easy as Microsoft products.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable product, but it also depends on the configuration.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable.
How was the initial setup?
It is quite straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its price should be optimized so that we can use more features.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten because my environment is Windows-based. For a non-Microsoft environment, I would rate it a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Managing Director at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
A stable and easy-to-use cloud computing platform
Pros and Cons
- "It's stable, easy to use, reliable, and cheap."
What is our primary use case?
It's cloud computing. It's just an alternative to buying physical servers and storage.
Within our organization, there are roughly 2,000 employees using this solution. We definitely plan to keep using this solution in the future.
What is most valuable?
It's stable, easy to use, reliable, and cheap.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for the past few years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is very stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is pretty good. I think they're doing pretty well.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to use Amazon AWS.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very straightforward. It only takes minutes because it's cloud provisioning.
What about the implementation team?
I installed this solution myself along with the help of three technical team members.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price needs to be lower because they're competing with AWS. AWS, price-wise, is sexier. In this case, Azure needs to do better in terms of pricing.
We are on a subscription; we pay on a monthly basis. It's consumption-based, so the price varies depending on usage.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight. I am satisfied with Microsoft Azure.
I would absolutely recommend this solution to others.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Enables our customers to obtain the results they need
Pros and Cons
- "The system is more secure, and this is valuable."
- "Sometimes performance takes a hit on a slow network."
What is our primary use case?
A lot of customers are turning to Microsoft Azure. We are using the latest version and we are a Microsoft Gold partner. We use it as a backup solution. It is also used for authentication and cancellations. We are providing these types of solutions as a live requirement, and we are moving customers to their Cloud Station.
What is most valuable?
The system is more secure.
What needs improvement?
It could be more stable, but we think this is due to Microsoft making changes too often to their setup. We also think the configuration could be easier. Sometimes performance takes a hit on a slow network. Microsoft does not appear to pay enough attention to the platform or the account solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Azure for a few years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is very scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
Microsoft does provide good support and enables our customers to obtain the results they need.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Initially, it was difficult to setup. The complexity comes in when there are more items to configure. We pay our bill in a monthly or 6 monthly billing cycle. The cost depends on how much you use during the period.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft Azure 8 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
System Administrator at a government with 201-500 employees
Reliable, has easy provisioning, and offers good integration capabilities
Pros and Cons
- "The solution offers very good upgrades and updates regularly."
- "Technical support is lacking right now. It needs to be better."
What is our primary use case?
We're using the product as an infrastructure as a service. I'm basically using it to host services.
What is most valuable?
The product is very easy to provision. This is one of its most valuable aspects.
The solution offers pretty good integration capabilities at this time.
We've found the pricing to be pretty good so far. It's not too expensive.
The initial setup is very straightforward.
The stability is quite good. It's a reliable product.
We have found the scalability to be very good.
The solution offers very good upgrades and updates regularly.
What needs improvement?
The product can be a bit confusing at times. It's not well laid out. The interface, for example, can be a bit hard to figure out and they seem to be constantly changing things on us.
It's a rather new product and therefore lacks the maturity of other options. There is much they can do to add to it and to improve it. That may likely come with more time.
Up until two or so years ago, they weren't even accepting customer feedback on the solution. They've just started to do so, and they have given users a sense that improvements will be on the way sometime in the future.
Technical support is lacking right now. It needs to be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for more than 12 months at this point. It's been a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance, overall, has been rather reliable for our organization.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product has the capability to expand. If a company needs to scale it, it can do so. It's not a problem.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support needs to be better. We are not quite satisfied with their level of support. They need to be more responsive to use when we have queries.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We actually use Amazon as well. We did use it before, however, we are also still using it. We use both Azure and Amazon at this time.
How was the initial setup?
We did not find the initial setup to be too complex. It's pretty straightforward. A company should be able to handle the deployment without too many issues.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is decent. We don't find that they are charging too much. It's pretty fair.
What other advice do I have?
As a cloud deployment, the solution is constantly updating itself, therefore we always have access to the latest release.
We have about 300 to 400 users on it currently. It's a business unit with various users of different job descriptions.
We are planning to increase the usage in the future.
I'm not sure if the company will use this solution for the long term or if they are considering trying something new. That is yet to be determined.
Overall, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We're mostly quite happy with it in general.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sr.Consultant at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Very scalable, no upfront expenses, fast time to market, and maximum uptime for our services
Pros and Cons
- "Its scalability is valuable. Depending on our requirements, we can add as many virtual machines as we want. We are able to get high availability for services. Services are always available, and they have the maximum uptime. If there is any issue with one of the services, another service is always available. It is pay-as-you-go. You don't have to spend any money upfront. You use the service and pay after one month or a couple of hours of use."
- "For deploying multiple resources in a big number, such as in hundreds, we need a streamlined process and more user-friendly scrips. The scripts have to be more user-friendly, and they should also supply some standard templates to deploy multiple resources at a time. Currently, it is very easy to deploy a couple of resources, but if you want to deploy multiple resources, it becomes complex. The material that they provide for integration with an existing on-prem data center is complex. They have to make them user-friendly. The scripts related to resource management need to be simplified."
What is our primary use case?
The existing infrastructure of our customers is on-prem. We will be migrating or moving from on-prem to Microsoft Azure cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
We don't have to spend money to purchase the hardware, set up a data center, get people to work on it, and maintain security. We don't have to spend any money on these things. It is ready to use, and resources are available for us. We just create an account on Azure and start using the services.
The time to market is very fast. We just supply the resources, virtual machines, and databases, and our applications are up and running. This helps our customers and us to be more future-ready and cloud-ready.
What is most valuable?
Its scalability is valuable. Depending on our requirements, we can add as many virtual machines as we want. We are able to get high availability for services. Services are always available, and they have the maximum uptime. If there is any issue with one of the services, another service is always available.
It is pay-as-you-go. You don't have to spend any money upfront. You use the service and pay after one month or a couple of hours of use.
What needs improvement?
For deploying multiple resources in a big number, such as in hundreds, we need a streamlined process and more user-friendly scrips. The scripts have to be more user-friendly, and they should also supply some standard templates to deploy multiple resources at a time. Currently, it is very easy to deploy a couple of resources, but if you want to deploy multiple resources, it becomes complex.
The material that they provide for integration with an existing on-prem data center is complex. They have to make them user-friendly. The scripts related to resource management need to be simplified.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for one year. In our company, we have been using it for four to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has a very high uptime for services. They are able to provide as per Service Level Agreement (SLA). We are not seeing any downtime for our applications. Our users have not reported any issues.
They have their internal redundancy for hardware and software. If there is an issue with any hardware, another hardware is ready to take the load.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. We can add as many virtual machines as we want. We have 400 to 500 people who are using this solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not worked with support. We work in a design team where we have a dedicated Microsoft account partner to provide support. That support is fine. If there is an issue with running virtual machines or there are any infrastructure issues, another team takes care of that. I've not got any complaints from them that their support is not working.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we had the regular on-prem solution with our own data center. We had to deploy physical servers, networks, databases, and everything else. We needed flexibility and scalability for our customers and applications, and that's why we moved to the cloud.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is operational expenditure (OPEX). There is no cost upfront. When you start using it, you have to pay the charges. Initially, the cost is less, but after you start using it more and more, the cost will go higher. It is a little bit costly, but that is okay because you get better resources. You also get better support in terms of how you create the resources. Documentation is available, and the SLAs are met.
What other advice do I have?
Companies are now starting to switch over to Azure, and before doing any kind of migration, they need to plan each and everything from scratch. They should have a Microsoft consultant or somebody from Microsoft so that they can plan well before using Azure. Otherwise, they will not be aware of where they are spending and how they can reduce the spending. They would also not know whether their security compliances are being met and whether their network is being fully utilized or having some issues. Proper planning has to be done before using Azure.
I would rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
DevOps Lead at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable and flexible with an easy initial setup
Pros and Cons
- "We've found the solution to be extremely flexible."
- "It would be helpful if it offered more integration with other platforms."
What is our primary use case?
We are primarily using the solution for DevOps purposes.
What is most valuable?
The installation of the product is very straightforward. It's quite easy in general.
The product is very stable. The performance has always been reliable.
We've found the solution to be extremely flexible.
What needs improvement?
I cannot recall anything really specific that needs to be addressed within the solution. There aren't any features that are missing as far as I can tell.
It would be helpful if it offered more integration with other platforms.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for a couple of years at this point. It's been a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It is reliable and the performance is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability overall has been fine. We have about 500 users in the solution currently.
If a company needs to expand it, or scale it, it can do so. It shouldn't be that hard to accomplish.
We do plan to continue to use the solution into the future.
How are customer service and technical support?
I rarely have any issues with the solution itself and therefore don't have too much experience with technical support. We don't have any complaints, to be honest.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously use a different solution before implementing Azure. This is our first tool in this area.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex at all. It's very easy and very straightforward. The process shouldn't give a company any trouble.
I can't recall the exact length of time it took to deploy the product.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is likely reasonable. If you compare it to other cloud providers, there isn't too much of a difference. It likely is competitive in the market.
What other advice do I have?
We are customers and end-users.
I'm not sure which version of the solution we are using at this time.
I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. Our experience so far has been mostly positive.
Overall, I would rate the product at an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
CISO at a religious institution with 501-1,000 employees
Very stable, easy to set up, and allows us to scale up and scale down depending upon our needs
Pros and Cons
- "Its ability to scale is most valuable. There are certain periods of the year when we are busier, and we're able to scale up and scale down with Azure depending upon our needs."
- "They're already doing quite a bit. I'm not unsatisfied with anything that they're doing right now. They can maybe make the transitions a little smoother and improve its pricing. The pricing for the end-user packages is a bit high."
What is our primary use case?
One of the use cases that we have is with our installation of SAP on private. We also have some apps that we have developed that are public, and we use the security system that they provide. We also use Microsoft Sentinel, which is the SIEM that helps us to align with the alerts and the incidents. We have a combination of public and private clouds, but everything is in Azure.
What is most valuable?
Its ability to scale is most valuable. There are certain periods of the year when we are busier, and we're able to scale up and scale down with Azure depending upon our needs.
What needs improvement?
They're already doing quite a bit. I'm not unsatisfied with anything that they're doing right now. They can maybe make the transitions a little smoother and improve its pricing. The pricing for the end-user packages is a bit high.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. It is very simple to scale.
How are customer service and technical support?
You have to go through a lot of preliminary levels before you finally get to someone, but you can get a difficult problem solved. There is a process that you have to follow.
How was the initial setup?
As far as the setup goes, most of it is pretty simple. When we started working with Microsoft Intune and a little bit on the unified labeling, it became a bit more complicated, but we're getting through it.
Shared active directory and multifactor authentication (MFA) are a little bit difficult to introduce because once you put something on it, it affects all of their Office products and anything that deals with Microsoft, whether it is SharePoint, OneDrive, or something else. Often, we want to activate it for an app and not so much for everything else, but that's our peculiar quirk. I don't think there is anything that Microsoft needs to change necessarily.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing for the end-user packages is a bit high. It is full of very interesting services, but I would still like it to be less expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Project Specialist at integra software
An open and flexible cloud computing platform
Pros and Cons
- "Microsoft Azure is flexible and the performance is great."
- "From a security perspective, it could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution to host applications for our customers. We're implementers, we support our clients.
We have 32 customers using this solution. We have a technical team that handles all maintenance-related issues. We have multiple teams in place for each and everything. For each platform, we have an integrated team in place.
What is most valuable?
Microsoft Azure is flexible and the performance is great.
What needs improvement?
From a security perspective, it could be improved. A little bit of automation would also be nice.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is both stable and scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support could be faster.
How was the initial setup?
Overall, the initial setup is quite straightforward. Installation takes roughly four to five days.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
CEO at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Large scope that is easy to work with, easy to install, and reasonably priced
Pros and Cons
- "Microsoft Azure has a large scope, it can do many things."
- "I believe that some of the services need to be available on the on-premises version and not only based on the cloud."
What is our primary use case?
We sell Microsoft products, and licensing that is involved in an Open License.
We sell a variety of solutions to our customers.
Microsoft Azure is a very good solution for many customers. We prefer to offer hybrid solutions to our smaller-sized customers.
The online will be through Azure or 365 and the databases we prefer locally.
It is used with Exchange, all of the mail, team, and the share products such as SharePoint.
Also for security with AI, which we are still testing.
What is most valuable?
Microsoft Azure has a large scope, it can do many things.
Everything is very easy to work with.
What needs improvement?
I believe that some of the services need to be available on the on-premises version and not only based on the cloud.
There are some security issues in the cloud that cannot be solved. Some countries will not allow you to store certain types of data on the cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
We started using Microsoft 365 in 2009.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability needs improvement. At times when there is a problem in one area, everything gets stopped, which is not good.
If the problem is the bandwidth and you have a number of redundancies or lines that link to Azure, you will have few options in Azure.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
it is a scalable solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
We haven't had a lot of issues. In our company, we prefer to learn about each product, and by doing this, we have fewer issues.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is very easy.
Most areas of the application can be installed in a few minutes, but the configuration is a different story.
The configuration is dependent on the demands or the environment.
it can take hours or it can take days.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Most of the pricing from Microsoft is reasonable.
The prices are very good for the services.
What other advice do I have?
If Microsoft Azure meets the demands of the company, we would recommend it.
Other companies, may require products like Amazon, or they use their own data center. It depends on the company.
I would rate most of the areas in Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Team Lead, Enterprise Computing Platforms at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
A reliable solution for migration and disaster recovery strategy
Pros and Cons
- "It's been pretty useful in terms of migration and disaster recovery strategy."
- "Microsoft's technical support could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
Within my company, there are roughly 150 employees using this solution. We need about 30-35 people for maintenance.
What is most valuable?
It's been pretty useful in terms of migration and disaster recovery strategy.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Microsoft Azure for roughly four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is quite stable. We haven't had any issues stability-wise.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is good. I would rate it high, scalability-wise.
How are customer service and technical support?
Microsoft's technical support could be improved.
There are certain areas on the Level 1 to Level 2 support-side that are not exactly great. We have issues with our Linux operating system. I don't think we've had delays as such but I would say that's one area there might be some scope for improvement.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I personally used to work with AWS, but that was at another company.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was fairly easy. Pretty much all the services are easy to deploy — not very complicated as such.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost could definitely be lower.
What other advice do I have?
You have to look out for the external storage costs — it can be a bit of a surprise. You have to do your budgeting. We didn't really anticipate that the storage expenses would be so much higher than anything else. That's something people have to budget and account for before they migrate to the cloud.
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this soluting a rating of eight.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Architect at a tech company with 201-500 employees
A customizable platform for creating various dashboards
Pros and Cons
- "It's a great solution. It's so customizable. Every user can create dashboards to suit their needs. We can create and share them with our teammates easily, too."
- "Due to the pandemic, I haven't been able to utilize their full resources. This has made it complicated to scale up. I hope this will be resolved after the pandemic."
What is our primary use case?
Within our organization, there are roughly 15 people using this solution.
What is most valuable?
It's a great solution. It's so customizable. Every user can create dashboards to suit their needs. We can create and share them with our teammates easily, too.
Microsoft Azure is also very user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
I honestly can't think of anything that needs to be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for five years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is both scalable and stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is very responsive.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I evaluated Amazon and Google Cloud.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was quite straightforward. Deployment depends on your requirements. Typically, I can deploy it within a weeks time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There are monthly and yearly payment plans. We save more in the long run with the yearly option.
What other advice do I have?
I would absolutely recommend this solution to other users.
Microsoft Azure has all of the latest cloud services with all high availability and scalability. It's also very secure. The cost is more or less the same across all cloud service providers, too.
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.
Due to the pandemic, I haven't been able to utilize their full resources.This has made it complicated to scale up. I hope this will be resolved after the pandemic.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Architect/ Project Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Provides very good security, scalability, and elasticity
Pros and Cons
- "Good security, scalability, and elasticity."
- "Technical support could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case of this solution is generally for infrastructure service, and also for VC-migrations and district modernization using the platform service. We're a consulting firm so we use this solution and also deploy it for our customers. I'm an architect/project manager and we are partners of Microsoft.
What is most valuable?
The main beneficial features the product provides are security, scalability, and elasticity.
What needs improvement?
The technical support could be improved. When we leave tickets, it can take some days before the issue is dealt with.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't had any issues with stability in the last 12 months, prior to that there were some small problems.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good, most of our clients are enterprise size organizations.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward, the environment is mature with a lot of documentation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution is okay although it depends on the region of the deployment.
What other advice do I have?
A company should look at the suitability for their use case before choosing a solution.
I rate this solution an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Cloud Architect at a legal firm with 10,001+ employees
A classic solution in jeopardy of losing its flexibility due to becoming SaaS
Pros and Cons
- "If you're interested in going with Microsoft, my advice would be to do it. Everybody's using Microsoft."
- "The support, the cost, the way they have the tiers, this could all be improved."
What is our primary use case?
I work for a Naval Shipyard. We build fighter ships for fighter aircraft. The Navy is our sponsor. Everything that we do is Navy or Navy-related. A lot of what we do is classified; however, I can say that we do some robotic AI work.
Microsoft is our corporate authentication piece, so everything has to authenticate to Microsoft Azure. Everything in the whole entire company has to authenticate there. Even if you're building something, you have to be leading up to the point where it's going to authenticate to Microsoft. They are the vendor of choice, as far as authentication, but they're not the vendor of choice as far as all things at the shipyard.
Our entire organization uses this solution. Size-wise, we're similar to a small city.
What is most valuable?
No features really stand out in particular. The reason that we use Microsoft Azure is that Microsoft has left us no choice — that's what I would say. If you use Microsoft, you've been curtailed in your on-prem data center. There are certain things we can do with Azure on-prem that we can't do on the cloud. We're now fully in the cloud. But even most of the Office products, which are in Office 365, are still on-prem. I came to this company to do cloud, but the company isn't ready to go to the cloud. It sounds like upper management is going to be changing some of the business structures. The better information I can give upper management, as far as our features and capabilities, will help them to make better business decisions. That's kind of where I am currently.
What needs improvement?
The support, the cost, the way they have the tiers, this could all be improved. For example, our company has been purchasing Microsoft Office 365 cloud licensing for approximately five years, and we do not have any production. We have five divisions and these divisions have different classification and levels of data. This company has changed hands over the years. We now lead the was as far as IT, but the corporate office didn't do a top-down infrastructure. It's a long story, but the way that we do things is not the way that everybody else does things. Just because others are moving to XYZ doesn't mean we're going to go there today. We might look and see how everybody else is doing everything, and once we decide we're ready to go, then we'll go. It might be 10 years later. It might be next week, but we don't follow the crowd. We follow the Navy.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Microsoft since the very beginning.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Although I am not the administrator, there are some things that are kind of quirky. The biggest problem is that we're a really, really, really big SharePoint user. Everything that's 100% SharePoint online, is not a one-for-one into the SharePoint that we have on-prem.
Security is a problem, that's why we only allow web products for Office 365. SharePoint doesn't give us everything that we need. These are a few of the drawbacks for us.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is complex, but only because our company is complex.
How are customer service and technical support?
Support depends. For the professional services, they're usually pretty good.
For other divisions, the support hasn't been that good. Anytime we have problems and we try to ask for support, what we paid for is one thing and what we're getting is another thing. Because of this, we often have to renegotiations with Microsoft.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very complex because we're a complex corporation.
The review board has actually approved all of the Microsoft Office 2016 products and applications. We have the licenses, however, we're not using them.
Teams is the one collaborative product that everybody wants to use. We've approved Microsoft Teams on the web only. Because of our security constraint, we don't want our users to use every feature that's actually on Teams. We don't want to allow third-party vendors to use that application in order to get into our environment.
For example, you can share your screen, but I can't share my screen. I can share an application if it's been approved, but I can't share my screen. The only way I can actually talk to you is if we talk about topical issues that you would read about in the newspaper or something like that. I can't tell you anything that's company proprietary.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Right now we're looking at Microsoft TFS, Azure on DevOps. However, all of the features have to be configured by someone. It's not that ADO can't do it, it's just that it would take a lot of time — we'd have to have someone physically come in and do it. That would require Microsoft Professional Services which costs a lot of money. Often, people can just buy stuff off the shelf when they want to use another product. For example, all the ALM tools actually integrate with TFS. So, if we have a product that already has that capability, why are we purchasing those new products? Why are we doing a POC for that? So that's what kind of hat I wear here.
What other advice do I have?
If you're interested in going with Microsoft, my advice would be to do it. Everybody's using Microsoft.
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of seven.
The problem is that I'm an old Microsoft engineer. I like to build it the way I want to build it. I don't want it to be SaaS. I liked the fact that you could build your servers in the AWS environment and build out the servers the way you want. They're actually taking away a lot of the applications. More and more companies are switching to SaaS or IAS, etc.
Now, the structure is going towards SaaS. I think I have a three-year lifecycle on my licenses and then I will have to drop or either migrate my data to SaaS. It's probably cheaper for people to go that way, but it gives you less flexibility. There's probably more security, but you're depending on the vendor's security or however they have that set up. You lose a lot of your flexibility when you go into SaaS.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Associate Director at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Great for configuring on a variety of machines; very stable and scalable
Pros and Cons
- "It's a reasonably priced solution."
- "Could be more user friendly; security features should be improved."
What is our primary use case?
In our company, this solution is mainly used for configuring devices and enabling them to be used by multiple users. I'm a developer.
What is most valuable?
The product is valuable if you don't want to spend a lot of money configuring your own devices on different machines. I like that if I only want to use limited features, I don't have to pay for it.
What needs improvement?
The solution is not particularly user friendly so that could be improved. With Microsoft Azure it's quite difficult to do anything freely or try my hand at something new. I think the solution is also lacking in security. I'd like to see the option of a free account for carrying out a POC and the ability to play around with the solution without any restrictions.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using this solution for a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have the server on cloud so it's scalable according to demand. All of our staff use it, and we have 15,000 users.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used AWS. In comparison, Azure is a little restricted because of the security features and, as a developer, I'm not comfortable with that. AWS is more user friendly and in general, people find it easier to use. AWS is easier to install and to experiment and play around with to get a feel for the product.
How was the initial setup?
There is no setup as such, it's on a server and it's a matter of configuring on the cloud. If you need, you can spawn 3,000 machines with a single execution and 10,000 or so test scripts within minutes.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend this solution.
I rate it an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Infrastructure Architect at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees
Secure cloud platform that is stable and scalable, and they have good support
Pros and Cons
- "There are many different components such as SaaS, PaaS, and API so every month they are releasing a few hundred new features."
- "It is constantly updating. There are weekly releases, sometimes daily releases, and there should be fewer that are consolidated into one."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for IaaS, SaaS, PaaS security, identity, and Kubernetes.
What is most valuable?
I like everything, overall.
It's a cloud platform so it's alive.
There are many different components such as SaaS, PaaS, and API, so every month they are releasing a few hundred new features.
What needs improvement?
It is constantly updating. There are weekly releases, sometimes daily releases, and there should be fewer that are consolidated into one.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for six years.
We are using the latest version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a very scalable solution. It is not really the number of users we have, but rather, it is more a case of service PCs. We have 70,000 or more.
How are customer service and technical support?
My experience with technical support has been good. They are very supportive.
How was the initial setup?
It's as complex as it wants to be. There's nothing initial about it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's an OPEX model, you pay as you go, or you can reserve funds.
Pricing can always be better.
What other advice do I have?
It's a good product and I recommend it to others.
I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Presales Network & Security Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
A solid cloud-based platform with fair licensing
Pros and Cons
- "We didn't have any problems setting it up."
- "A problem with Azure is that the architecture that they have is not really compliant — not really connecting with the endpoint Cloud."
What is our primary use case?
Within our company, there are around 150 employees using this solution. We have a technical team of about five or six people.
What is most valuable?
I like that it's cloud-based and it's 24/7, theoretically. I am also happy with the licensing fees. It's quite competitive in the market. They sell Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and level 5 licenses, and one of them is compatible with PowerPoint. The licensing fee is quite cheap for what they're offering.
What needs improvement?
A few different vendors from Fortinet, from Barracuda, from Forcepoint, all use infrastructure from Azure from time to time. A problem with Azure is that the architecture that they have is not really compliant — not really connecting with the endpoint Cloud. It's a different type of architecture, so that's a mistake from Microsoft. Hopefully, they will fix it soon.
It could be more secure actually. Microsoft Defender is not very secure. The platform is also a bit slow, to be honest. It takes a few seconds to load. Although, it does update quickly now. It's one-click — Microsoft takes four seconds and Google takes two and a half. It's minimal.
Better integration with other vendors and third-party systems would be a nice change.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for roughly five or six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is cloud-based, so it's definitely scalable.
How was the initial setup?
We didn't have any problems setting it up.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure a rating of eight. It's a good product. It does have a few flaws but it's solid.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Cloud Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Multiple products in one, scalable, stable and good support
Pros and Cons
- "There are several products within Azure."
What is our primary use case?
We are using the solution for applications.
What is most valuable?
There are several products within Azure.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable in my experience.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
The service is good.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost structure is like most cloud-based services. The solution could be cheaper, it is always better to be cheaper.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend this solution.
I rate Microsoft Azure a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Owner and Senior Technical Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
A secure, vast, and powerful platform that provides many possibilities and reduces the strain on internal IT
Pros and Cons
- "It is so huge and so powerful. The best thing is the possibilities of things that you can actually do with it. If you do it right, you can work or host your stuff a lot cheaper than traditionally. Its security is good, and it also reduces the strain on internal IT."
- "I would like to see improved migration tools. It is improving week by week. They just need to make sure that they keep up with the new functionality provided in other clouds."
What is most valuable?
It is so huge and so powerful. The best thing is the possibilities of things that you can actually do with it. If you do it right, you can work or host your stuff a lot cheaper than traditionally.
Its security is good, and it also reduces the strain on internal IT.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see improved migration tools. It is improving week by week. They just need to make sure that they keep up with the new functionality provided in other clouds.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for nine years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not been overly impressed with stability in the last years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
By definition, it is scalable. Indirectly, one of our customers probably has more than 100,000 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
If you take the normal technical support, then it is okay. If you pay for premium technical support, then it is really good.
How was the initial setup?
Its initial setup is straightforward. You don't have to do anything. It is all done for you.
What other advice do I have?
I am a Microsoft partner, so I would, of course, recommend it. I would recommend Azure, then AWS, and then Google.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Senior Software Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It is stable, flexible, and easy to use, but it can be more secure
Pros and Cons
- "It is easy to use and flexible."
- "It is pretty secure, but it can always be more secure."
What is our primary use case?
We use it to create virtual machines for the key vaults and our processes.
What is most valuable?
It is easy to use and flexible.
What needs improvement?
It is pretty secure, but it can always be more secure.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I don't know much about it, but I think it is scalable. We have 300 to 400 users of this solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
I do not have any experience with their technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am not aware of any other solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. We plan to keep using it.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior IT Manager at Excelra
Easy to use, good integration with Active Directory, and quick support
Pros and Cons
- "The feature that we like best is integration with Active Directory."
- "It would be advantageous if the dashboard had more clarity, in terms of the visibility that it provides."
What is our primary use case?
We use Azure for storage, virtual machines, virtual networking, and our VPN.
We have the Microsoft Firewall set up, and we use Blob Storage.
There are many different features we use, based on different requirements.
What is most valuable?
The feature that we like best is integration with Active Directory.
Azure is easy to use.
What needs improvement?
It would be advantageous if the dashboard had more clarity, in terms of the visibility that it provides. The challenge that we are facing has to do with resources and the grouping of them. We have different services that we use and we cannot see all of them until we filter the resource group.
Having inbuilt security would be an improvement. As it is now, Microsoft has a sentinel as a security tool, where you need to integrate it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for more than three years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable product. We have between 50 and 100 people who are using it, and most of them are software developers.
How are customer service and technical support?
The support is very good, and they respond within an hour.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use AWS as well as Azure.
How was the initial setup?
Normally, we log in and then we roll out the services for instances that we want, based on the requirements. It only takes a couple of minutes to deploy.
What about the implementation team?
We deploy this product ourselves and we have a DevOps engineer who takes care of the maintenance.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, this is a good product. We definitely plan to continue using it in the future and I recommend it to others.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
SOA & BP Technical Manager at EJADA
Easy to install, stable, easy to use, and they have good technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of this solution is the ease of use."
- "I would like to see this solution support integration."
What is our primary use case?
We are vendors. We are neutral from the technologies. We provide solutions to our clients as well as implement the customer needs with the different technologies.
We have a multi-channel mobile app solution that we implement, and we have an API deployed on Azure cloud. We use API management in the Azure cloud.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of this solution is the ease of use.
The Azure APIs is monetization. Its support, monetization for prepaid and postpaid are good features that we look for.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see this solution support integration.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been selling Microsoft Azure for a couple of years.
We are implementing the latest version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a scalable solution. We have approximately 1,000 users who are using this solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is awesome! It's very good.
How was the initial setup?
We have installed many competitive products, such as Appigee and IBM, but Microsoft Azure is the easiest one to install.
While I was not a part of the deployment, I know it took them less than a week.
We have a team of 10 to 15 for the deployment, customization, and implementation of this solution.
What other advice do I have?
For anyone who is interested in using this solution, I would recommend it.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
User at CGI
Reduces work for our IT teams and saves us a lot of time
Pros and Cons
- "Reduces work for our IT teams and saves us a lot of time."
- "Quite an expensive solution."
What is our primary use case?
We are customers of Microsoft and I'm an IT architect.
What is most valuable?
The solution reduces work for our IT teams. They don't have to keep things up to date, and we can concentrate on our mission. The best feature for us is the help we get from Microsoft to migrate applications to the latest release and support efforts. It saves us a lot of time.
What needs improvement?
The cost is a big issue, it can quickly go up if you don't control things. We've set up a system that shuts down machines regularly so we don't run up costs. Sometimes our development teams start up machines and forget to shut them down, and we see our costs go up quite rapidly with monthly surcharges. It would be helpful if Microsoft didn't change the control panels quite so often. It means we need to retrain personnel whenever things change and that seems to have an impact on our IT teams.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using this solution for nearly four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is good and the solution is easy to maintain.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is really awesome. We don't have to worry about it at all, we're really impressed. Everyone in the company uses Azure.
How are customer service and technical support?
Tech support is great. I find that we get answers quickly. It's just the first line of support that I criticize sometimes because it seems that whenever we open a ticket, they give us a run around with certain questions that basically we've answered. But as soon as we get into the next level of support, it's more advanced and questions are answered quite rapidly. Our tech guys know how to open a ticket and basically provide all the available information that they need. We sometimes have to get through that initial loop, and answer the same questions again and again, until they push us to another level of support.
How was the initial setup?
Four years ago the initial setup was quite complex but lately I find it's becoming increasingly easier, and the set up rules for securities are a lot simpler. These are things that are improving all the time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing is on an annual basis.
What other advice do I have?
If a company wants to concentrate more on their mission and less on supporting infrastructure, they should give Azure a go. I find that it saves us a lot of time.
I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Team Lead Regional - Equipo Comercial de Soporte Técnico at SEGA
Straightforward navigation, fast and easy, and supports SaaS
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable aspect of Azure is the flexibility you have for all the services and solutions it offers, even if you use IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS, you have the option to only pay for the services you use."
- "Integrate as a service. A lot of Microsoft software licensing options aren’t yet in Azure. Also, the ability to integrate with other technologies, such as other options on the market based on RISC Technologies."
What is our primary use case?
We are a Microsoft Partner for Central America. The solution is in our portfolio, we provide managed services on Azure for our customers and we use it for our services infrastructure.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect of Azure is the flexibility you have for all the services and solutions it offers, even if you use IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS, you have the option to only pay for the services you use – “pay as you go”, in a Cloud that is compliant with most regulations, using this advantage you have a lot of options and technologies you can adopt, and easily integrate into your infrastructure, to accelerate your Digital Transformation journey.
We integrating Azure to build solutions that we offer to our customers.
What needs improvement?
Integrate as a service. A lot of Microsoft software licensing options aren’t yet in Azure. Also, the ability to integrate with other technologies, such as other options on the market based on RISC Technologies.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for 10 years.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Microsoft Azure an nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
General Manager at a tech company with 11-50 employees
A reliable, stable, and scalable solution that meets our needs and is easy to implement and use
Pros and Cons
- "There are many useful features. We use web apps, so instead of starting a web server, we just have machines running some web services. This was helpful for us in terms of the scalability of the application. We also use Active Directory for authentication and some services for the data backup. It is a very good and reliable solution. It was easy to implement this solution. It fits very well into our plans and covers our needs to provide infrastructure in the cloud. The portal to configure new resources is very easy, and it is very easy to allocate new resources."
- "We would like it to be cheaper. As a customer, we always want to pay less."
What is our primary use case?
Our production system is on Microsoft Azure. We are using the latest version of this solution.
We have services for the data in the SQL Server database. We also have servers for our web-based applications. All transactions occur in this environment. We also have a mirror environment in Azure, which is a different cloud geographically.
What is most valuable?
There are many useful features. We use web apps, so instead of starting a web server, we just have machines running some web services. This was helpful for us in terms of the scalability of the application. We also use Active Directory for authentication and some services for the data backup.
It is a very good and reliable solution. It was easy to implement this solution. It fits very well into our plans and covers our needs to provide infrastructure in the cloud. The portal to configure new resources is very easy, and it is very easy to allocate new resources.
What needs improvement?
We would like it to be cheaper. As a customer, we always want to pay less.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution since 2013.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In the past, they had some major outages, but it is a pretty stable platform.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. It is as easy as assigning more resources, but it also depends on the architecture. If you have web apps or microservices, it is easy to implement a kind of dynamic or elastic growth. When you have a lot of activities, Azure will automatically assign more resources, which is pretty convenient.
We have around 200 users in our company, but we also have a merchant network that uses our system. This network has about 1,000 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
We had to escalate one case with the Microsoft team because we lost the connection with a data store. We got a response back within an hour of the event, and it was normal. Their service is fine in this regard. You can also have a better support contract, but what we have is enough for our purposes and needs.
How was the initial setup?
It is pretty easy. You just have to follow the step-by-step guidelines. The deployment happens almost immediately. If you need to increase or upgrade a server or have a new server, you just go to the portal and create a new resource, such as a server or a disk. It is very fast. There is no waiting time at all.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its price can be cheaper. Price is always an issue. We pay around $10,000 per month for all resources.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are launching a new platform for software as a service. We create our software, and for a new concept and architecture, we are comparing AWS with Azure. We are exploring AWS. It is a different stack, and we don't have much experience with it. So far, we don't have a lot of information about production on AWS because the product is not live yet. It will take a couple of months to be finished.
What other advice do I have?
It is a good solution. If you have any on-premise applications, you have to be very careful about the architecture. What you don't want to do is copy what you have in your data center and put it on the cloud because there are various alternatives once you are in the cloud. Therefore, I would recommend others to review the architecture and take advantage of the features that it provides.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten. We are happy with Microsoft and this solution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior System Engineer at a engineering company with 11-50 employees
Easy to use with good scalability potential and good stability on offer
Pros and Cons
- "The product is rather stable. We haven't had any issues with it in that sense."
- "It would be ideal if they could reduce costs a bit. Right now, we find the product to be expensive."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution to host the web server.
What is most valuable?
The product is very convenient for us. It ensures the website is set up right.
The solution can scale if you need it to. Expanding it is easy.
The product is rather stable. We haven't had any issues with it in that sense.
The solution is very easy to use.
What needs improvement?
I can't say that we have any complaints in terms of features or lack of capabilities within the product. Over the last two years, I'd say it's been so far so good.
It would be ideal if they could reduce costs a bit. Right now, we find the product to be expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for around two years at this point. It hasn't been too long.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution so far has been reliable. We haven't had problems with stability over the last two years of use. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's been good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution is very good. If a company needs to expand it, they can do so rather easily. It shouldn't give them any trouble.
We don't currently have plans to increase the usage ourselves at this point. There's no scaling that will be done in the near future on our end.
How are customer service and technical support?
We've been in touch with technical support in the past. We had a question we needed them to answer and they were able to help us. I'd say they were knowledgeable and responsive and that we've been happy with the level of service so far.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing is based on usage. I'm not sure of the exact costs involved as it's not an aspect of the solution that is my responsibility.
That said, it is my understanding that it is a bit expensive.
What other advice do I have?
We're just a customer. We aren't a reseller or consultant and we don't have a professional business relationship with Microsoft.
We only really use the solution to host a website, and therefore we don't really use the full scope of features right now.
I'd recommend the solution to other organizations as it is rather easy to use.
Overall, we've been quite happy with the product. I'd rate it eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Platform Engineer and Infrastructure Management at Colciencias
A stable, scalable, and useful solution
Pros and Cons
- "It is stable and scalable. It is useful for many applications and services, such as SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive."
- "They can add more documentation about the solution."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for various services and business applications.
What is most valuable?
It is stable and scalable. It is useful for many applications and services, such as SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive.
What needs improvement?
They can add more documentation about the solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. We have around 100 people in the organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is good. There are no problems.
How was the initial setup?
It is easy to set up.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. It is a good solution.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Stable and flexible, easy to install, and the support is good
Pros and Cons
- "It's a flexible solution."
- "We need more customization and support for doing so."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Microsoft Azure to access the Azure cloud database.
What is most valuable?
It's a flexible solution.
What needs improvement?
We need more customization and support for doing so.
I would like to see more customization on the DevOps side.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately two years. The organization has been it for more than five years.
We are working with the current version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We plan to continue using it in the future.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is very good.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is straightforward.
If you want to install it, it would have to be on a VMware virtual machine.
If you have some experience, it doesn't take much more than thirty minutes to an hour to complete the installation.
What about the implementation team?
I completed the installation myself.
What other advice do I have?
This is a good product and I recommend it to others who are interested in using it.
I would rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Systems Administrator Team Leader at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good workload performance and the ExpressRoute connects us directly to the Microsoft cloud
Pros and Cons
- "We have implemented the ExpressRoute connection, which is an established circuit between the local provider and the Microsoft network edge."
- "At times, the support is terrible."
What is our primary use case?
This year, we built our own data center, and we use this solution to extend it into the cloud.
We have implemented the ExpressRoute connection, which is an established circuit between the local provider and the Microsoft network edge. This leads you directly to the Microsoft data center.
The digital workload transfers from on-premises here to the Azure cloud, which is a hybrid model. We have two different zones in Azure. One is for the intranet, and the other is for the internet.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the performance for our digital workloads.
What needs improvement?
At times, the support is terrible. It is not bad all of the time, but many times when we have contacted them, there are juniors without refined knowledge. We have had instances where it takes a long time to solve just a single problem.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Azure for the past two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability depends on the customer. They decide the compute and other things, such as the level of support. If they take premium support then the SLA given by Microsoft is higher than when you choose a virtual machine without premium.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
At the moment, we are reviewing and studying how to migrate our full workload to the cloud. We have one datacenter with more than 120 virtual machines and we are learning how to do the migration. Once it is achieved, the hybrid model we have can become a public model.
How was the initial setup?
Our design was complex because we wanted it done in a certain way. There were lots of things to be done. We just experienced problems in the firewall's compatibility with Azure because when you implement a firewall, it's not as straightforward as in the case when you implement it on-premises. This led to some challenges and we had to troubleshoot the deployment of one firewall for a full month.
Even the local providers did not have experience with how to deploy that one firewall, which is why we spent so much time troubleshooting. It turns out that when you deploy a firewall on-premises and you want to migrate to the cloud, there are certain considerations that you have to keep in mind, which makes it more complex.
For our second firewall implementation, it was faster and better.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis.
What other advice do I have?
This is definitely a product that I recommend, but it has to be done smartly. Not everything can be migrated and you shouldn't try to migrate everything as-is. It has to be done properly and people have to understand how services that are to be migrated need to be done. Also, there are some services that should not be migrated because it is better to keep them on your own cloud. This should all be studied in advance.
I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Digital Architecture Project Leader at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
A good solution with useful features and good stability, scalability, and availability
Pros and Cons
- "Active Directory is a good feature. The infrastructure features that Azure provides are also good."
- "There should be more language options for the Azure Functions apps. It supports programming languages, but there are only a few options. It could have more programming languages."
What is our primary use case?
We are a consultancy company. We provide technology solutions for our clients. We use Microsoft Azure to provide infrastructure for our clients.
What is most valuable?
Active Directory is a good feature. The infrastructure features that Azure provides are also good.
What needs improvement?
There should be more language options for the Azure Functions apps. It supports programming languages, but there are only a few options. It could have more programming languages.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has good stability. It has an availability of 99,9%.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It has good scalability. It is an automatic process.
It is a retail solution. Therefore, we have a lot of users. We probably have direct and indirect users in thousands.
How are customer service and technical support?
I don't like their support so much. The support of Microsoft is not fast enough and should be faster. They have a lot of layers or levels. I used to get in touch with them through the Azure Portal.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. We have developed a DevOps automatic process, which makes it very fast to deploy. It takes just a few minutes.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise taking care of the intermediate layers between your business and Microsoft. They aren't good.
I would rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten. This rating is based on the general features. If they put more programming languages, I would rate it a ten. It is a good product.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Founder & Chief Technology Officer at Lavelle Networks
Responsive technical support, scales easily, and is the most economical of the main cloud providers
Pros and Cons
- "Azure is a good networking solution from a WAN perspective."
- "I would like to see all of the cloud providers be more compatible with each other."
What is our primary use case?
We are an SD-WAN vendor and we deal with a lot of networks. Microsoft Azure is one that I use regularly.
It's application migration. We run a network as a service from Azure. People are migrating to Azure, either it's MS SQL, SAP on Azure deployments or just running on Azure that we connect.
The primary use case is to provide the SD-WAN to connect their remote offices and users to Azure and the data center.
How has it helped my organization?
Azure is pretty good and in fact, we have about 100 customers who are using Azure on our technology. These are some of the largest manufacturing companies in this region.
What is most valuable?
Azure is a good networking solution from a WAN perspective.
Features and functionality from a scale perspective, at least in the top three, are very compatible. These are AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see all of the cloud providers be more compatible with each other. All of the big organizations, such as large manufacturing and banking and financials, use Azure, while other places will use Google Cloud to AWS. Compatability between these is important.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been associated with Microsoft Azure for the last three and a half years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Azure scales like any other cloud.
How are customer service and technical support?
As a partner, the technical support is pretty responsive.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We also use Digital Ocean, Google Cloud, AWS, and we are set up with multi-cloud.
I think Azure and AWS are similar in terms of pricing. Google Cloud is cheaper compared to either of these two. Google Cloud on the same sales chart. It is 30% to 40% cheaper than AWS or Azure. The Azure additional option is even cheaper than Google Cloud.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing is comparable but from a cost perspective, this solution is the cheapest.
What other advice do I have?
We use both Private Cloud and Public Cloud. For Banks it's generally through Private Cloud, otherwise, it's on a Public Cloud, as we deliver services as well on Azure.
This is a product that I can recommend to others.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Enterprise Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Stable, scalable, and the cloud-based storage capabilities are helpful
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is cloud-based storage."
- "I would like to see better integration with other products."
What is our primary use case?
We work with a lot of cloud-related products, including Azure.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is cloud-based storage.
All of the cloud-based features are helpful.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see better integration with other products.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Azure for a few years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not heard any complaints about the stability of Azure. Most likely, we will continue to use it in the future.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
From what I understand, it is scalable. We are quite a big company and as such, we have quite a lot of users.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not been in contact with technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In my experience, it has always been Microsoft Azure.
What other advice do I have?
Azure is a good product and I can recommend it to others.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
President at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Very flexible with good stability but needs better technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The product has been very stable for us so far."
- "Technical support could be better. They need to be more responsive."
What is our primary use case?
The solution is mainly used for setting up a big data platform on Azure and using some Azure items to navigate the data links and Data Factory.
What is most valuable?
The solution is quite flexible.
The product has been very stable for us so far.
You can scale the solution if you need to.
What needs improvement?
The solution needs to be easier to configure in the future. Right now, it's a bit difficult to accomplish.
Technical support could be better. They need to be more responsive.
The documentation should be more accessible. It's hard to find what we need right now.
It would be helpful if there was more data science or AI implemented in future versions.
The product needs to implement more API capabilities.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've had about two years of experience using this solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've found the stability to be quite good. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can scale the solution well. If a company wants to scale the solution, they can do so pretty easily.
We have about 20-50 people on the solution currently. We do plan to continue to use it in the future.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've been in touch with technical support and I haven't found them to be overly helpful. They need to improve their support services. The answers take too long to get. We shouldn't have to wait for as long as we do. I'd say, at this point, we aren't exactly satisfied with the level of service they provide to their clients.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used AWS. We simply used it for benchmarking.
How was the initial setup?
I can't speak to the initial setup as I didn't have any experience with it. I wasn't part of the implementation process.
I did mage the Azure DevOps deployment.
What other advice do I have?
We're just a customer and an end-user. We don't have a business relationship with Microsoft.
I'd recommend the solution for larger clients, especially if they are based in Europe or America.
In general, on a scale from one to ten, I'd rate this product at a seven. It's been mostly good for us. However, it could use much better technical support and documentation to make things easier.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Asst. Manager, Cloud Solutions at Corporate Projukti Limited
Easy to maintain with a simple initial setup but the pricing is a bit high
Pros and Cons
- "The focus on security is excellent. We really appreciate that about the solution."
- "The pricing in our region can be a bit high."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily have the solution working as an infrastructure as a service.
What is most valuable?
The focus on security is excellent. We really appreciate that about the solution.
The maintenance of the solution is very good.
The migration capabilities are great.
The implementation is easy.
What needs improvement?
The solution could be a bit more intuitive and easier to use.
The documentation could be a bit better. It could be more clear and accessible. It would be good to know if the person answering the questions was a Microsoft employee or just another user.
The pricing in our region can be a bit high.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for as long as three years at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. There's never any downtime. We don't deal with crashes or freezing. There aren't bugs or glitches. It works well.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product is scalable. If a company needs to expand, it can do so easily.
Currently, we have 20 people that use the solution within our organization. We also have three or four admins.
How are customer service and technical support?
Basically, the solution offers regional support and I'm okay with that. I don't need to worry about not getting the services I need. I've called and got support right away. I'm quite satisfied with the level of service that is being provided to us.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex at all. It's straightforward as the product is basically focusing on a pay as you go model.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
For our region, Bangladesh, the pricing of the product is too much.
What other advice do I have?
We're a gold partner with Microsoft in Bangladesh.
We're always using the latest version of the solution as Azure constantly updates itself.
I'd recommend the product to other organizations.
Overall, I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten. Mostly we've been happy with it, however, we do find the pricing to be a bit high.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
IT Senior Consultant and trainer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Simple to use, easy to configure, and scalable
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is very simple to use. It has a lot of great practical applications we really appreciate."
- "The solution could use mutual segmentation for servers. It would be ideal if you could constitute something like five or 15 groups among the groups of different computers inside Azure."
What is our primary use case?
I primarily use Microsoft Azure for application development in our development environment.
What is most valuable?
The solution is pretty dynamic.
We prefer that we can configure our environment very quickly.
We can add some notes if we need to. The testing capabilities are great. We can use the load balancing environment, and we can test a lot of different components from an infrastructure point of view. We can also test different scenarios within the application.
The solution is very simple to use. It has a lot of great practical applications we really appreciate.
What needs improvement?
The licensing model is not ideal. It is not very useful in predicting actual costs. Sometimes we found that we could not accurately predict how much specific products will cost the company in the future. Just now, for example, we want to start using Log Analytics for Office 365, however, we don't know the final price. It's inconvenient for us as we cannot predict the budget and it puts off making a decision. For Microsoft, it's very disadvantagous.
The solution could use mutual segmentation for servers. It would be ideal if you could constitute something like five or 15 groups among the groups of different computers inside Azure. If you could get something like logical groups of servers outside the mutual servers, it would be an improvement.
Sometimes we want to start and do a penetration test. If, for example, we're planning new security scanning for our customers. You have to inform Microsoft that you want to start a penetration test. If you have regular scans Microsoft should allow regular scanning, without having to plan and to ask for approval from the Microsoft side every time. When it's meant to be a regular occurrence, it's very inconvenient for us.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution is pretty good. It doesn't cause bottlenecks or any other major issues for us. We find it to be reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
While we can dynamically add servers according to the user request, it's not profitable for us. Currently, it is possible to scale the solution. It just costs more to do so.
How are customer service and technical support?
We are not so satisfied with technical support right now. Sometimes they cannot help us. We had problems with licensing and with the invoicing and so on and so on. Sometimes it's not very easy to explain the problems, the technical or non-technical, and they can't really assist us effectively.
In one instance, we had an issue with anti-spam on the service. We were trying to figure out why certain emails were being marked as spam. It took far too long to get to the bottom of the cause.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's hard to gauge what the pricing will be, so It's hard to plan with the solution. The licensing needs to be more transparent and obvious.
What other advice do I have?
We're simply Microsoft customers. We don't have a business relationship with the company.
Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten. We're mostly happy with it, although we would prefer if pricing was more transparent.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Network and systems administrator at a recruiting/HR firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
A stable platform with good technical support that is quick to resolve problems
Pros and Cons
- "My experience with technical support so far is very good."
- "If the price were reduced then it would be an improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use Azure for Office 365.
What is most valuable?
My experience with technical support so far is very good.
What needs improvement?
If the price were reduced then it would be an improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
For me and many other people, the general view is that Azure is very stable. We definitely plan to continue using it in the future.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution and we have thousands of users in our organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have had to contact Microsoft support about a problem that I was having with my virtual machine, where it could not find my VM. When I called them, they solved the problem quite fast.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to Azure, we used all of our Microsoft products on-premises.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy because we didn't do anything.
What about the implementation team?
We hired an IT consultant who is experienced in setting up cloud solutions. We did not do any of the setup ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing fees depend on the number of users that we have.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, this product is very good and I can recommend it. It would be difficult to improve.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Regional IT Infrastructure Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
A feature-rich and stable platform with good redundancy and scalability
Pros and Cons
- "The redundancy across different regions is the most valuable. It provides a big value for cloud services, especially for Microsoft."
- "The level of authorization or authorization cascading can be improved. We have the most powerful admins and then we have sub-admins, but the level of authorization is not that easy to handle or manage."
What is our primary use case?
Azure cloud is a platform for many things, such as hosting, file services, application or power apps, and data lake. All these things are a part of Microsoft Azure. We're using it as a full suite. We are a big tenant with all solutions for Microsoft. We are using the latest version of Microsoft Azure.
What is most valuable?
The redundancy across different regions is the most valuable. It provides a big value for cloud services, especially for Microsoft.
What needs improvement?
The level of authorization or authorization cascading can be improved. We have the most powerful admins and then we have sub-admins, but the level of authorization is not that easy to handle or manage.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for three years. I am using this solution on a daily basis. It is the main platform that we have.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Its stability is good. It is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very easy to scale. We have more than 7,000 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
They are pretty sufficient. I would rate them an eight out of ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We also have different cloud vendors like Amazon and Salesforce, but they all are for different purposes, so it depends on the service.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was simple. It was done in stages.
What about the implementation team?
We had the full support and dedication from Microsoft for its installation. Its maintenance is done by a vendor, and we also have some technical support from Microsoft when we are doing this stuff.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Microsoft always provides the entry-level solution with a cheap license. Once you start to like the product, then you have to pay for the full package, which is more expensive than the entry-level solution. Every feature comes with a license and a cost. Some licenses have multiple features, and some features require a specific license.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise starting directly with Microsoft and then asking the vendors to recommend the trusted partners to work on the implementation or migration, and not vice versa. First, talk with the architect of the design and see if they can recommend a trusted partner who can do the implementation.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten. It is a big product and platform. It covers many things in terms of features.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Unit Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Kubernetes service and API management are the most valuable, and it has very good stability and scalability
Pros and Cons
- "Kubernetes service and API management are the most valuable."
- "It should have a better hybrid-cloud central analysis. Their support service also needs to be improved. Our main concern is support calls. Our issue is basically related to the technical functionality of the services that we use. It doesn't behave as expected, and support often fails to solve the problem."
What is our primary use case?
We use it to extend our own data centers and banking scenarios for banking solutions.
How has it helped my organization?
It provides us with access to technology that's not available in any other form. It only exists in the cloud. In order to keep our solutions modern, we have to do it through the public cloud.
What is most valuable?
Kubernetes service and API management are the most valuable.
What needs improvement?
It should have a better hybrid-cloud central analysis. Their support service also needs to be improved. Our main concern is support calls. Our issue is basically related to the technical functionality of the services that we use. It doesn't behave as expected, and support often fails to solve the problem.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is pretty stable. It has very good stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. There are no issues with scalability.
We have a maximum of 200 users. They include internal developers and other types of profiles.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their support service needs to be improved.
How was the initial setup?
It is complex because the solutions are complex. It depends on how you want to do the setup. For our business scenario, it is complex because there are a lot of security rules that are involved in it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is competitive with other public cloud providers, and its price is very close to different cloud providers. There is not a noticeable difference between different cloud providers. Otherwise, it would be a risk for them to have services that were much more expensive than their competition. They're pretty much neck to neck on pricing.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise others to go for the closest possible platform as a service. Do not go for infrastructure as a service; go for platform as a service.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Flexible, easy to manage, has a nice interface, and the technical support is good
Pros and Cons
- "Azure is very flexible and easy to manage."
- "Talking from a networking perspective, when you create a file or a rule in Azure and you want to view this IP group, sometimes the way it is displayed on the GUI, you don't see the name of the group."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is Infrastructure as a Service. We use it for SaaS applications, as well.
What is most valuable?
Azure is very flexible and easy to manage.
The interface and usage are nice.
Previously, there was no IP group, but they have since implemented that and it has become better.
What needs improvement?
For some use cases, Microsoft Azure is okay and working, but it is lacking features and we cannot implement it fully.
Talking from a networking perspective, when you create a file or a rule in Azure and you want to view this IP group, sometimes the way it is displayed on the GUI, you don't see the name of the group. At a minimum, I should be able to see the name of the group. They need to improve the GUI with respect to creating files or files. In summary, on that GUI view for firewall rules creation, the IP groups that are chosen in the firewall are not easily seen.
If I want to track, for example, a soft IP group, and mistakingly I click the wrong thing, then it's a problem. They need to improve it so that you can just view it, read-only, and then edit it later if needed.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Microsoft Azure for approximately three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability an eight out of ten, as they are still developing.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have approximately 500 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is very good.
In my own workstream, I've not had cause to work with Microsoft support. However, my teammates from the department have been in contact with them.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. I can say that because my use case was greenfield, starting out fresh. It was a whole new installation and everything was straightforward.
It took between a month and two to deploy. The installation is not a big deal once you have the necessary license, and then you can begin testing.
What other advice do I have?
This is a product that is fast-growing and they are gaining popularity. We have invested in it, and plan to keep using it for the next five or ten years.
In my opinion, it is an awesome product. Microsoft is everywhere and it predates the cloud. Everything that they have is easy to use.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Architect at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
Good monitoring features and technical support, but the dashboards need to be improved
Pros and Cons
- "The monitoring features are very good."
What is most valuable?
The monitoring features are very good.
What needs improvement?
Some of the dashboard features can be improved.
Some of the backup solutions for SAP are not compatible. For example, we have a Sybase database running, and Azure does not have an agent tool for connecting with it. This means that we have to use a third-party tool to properly backup our SAP Sybase system.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Azure for between two and three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Azure is a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution and we have been 200 and 300 people who use it.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is really good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have not used another public cloud.
What about the implementation team?
We have an in-house team, and between 10 and 20 people maintain it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing model can be improved because we find that Azure pricing is a bit high.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are planning to migrate our SAP system to the cloud, so we have been looking at and comparing different cloud solutions. We are analyzing and comparing Google Cloud Platform, Amazon, and the IBM Cloud. After we compare them all we will make a decision.
What other advice do I have?
The suitability of this product depends on the customer's requirements and needs. AWS is stable and nice, the Google Cloud Platform is really improving a lot, and IBM Cloud is also available. The decision for which to use will be based on what kind of solutions you are deploying and how you want to integrate them. Ultimately, it is best to choose the provider that is most suitable for your existing workload.
Overall, this is a good solution but there are certainly features that need to be improved, as well as the pricing.
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Executive Officer at UK export finance
Hosts our whole data center and has a simple setup and very good support
Pros and Cons
- "We've got multiple tools on Azure, which is a very good feature of Azure. Our Palo Alto firewall and other things are hosted in Azure. We're using Sentinel as well, which is a security tool that is being used by our SOC teams. I've also used AWS, and I find Azure to be more Windows-driven. Although Azure is newer as compared to AWS, it is growing fast. Microsoft is working towards the betterment of Azure."
- "As compared to AWS, Azure can improve its functionality. In terms of the feature list, it is still lacking a bit as compared to AWS. AWS supports lots of types of operating systems, which Azure is still catching up with. Azure is mainly focused on the Windows system, and it is not yet there in terms of integration with other operating systems like Linux, Unix. Azure is slowly catching up."
What is our primary use case?
Our whole data center is on this basically. We are UK Export Finance, so we've got financial products there. All of our servers are hosted in Azure.
We are using an Azure subscription. We are on Azure Public Cloud, but we have got our own private subscription.
What is most valuable?
We've got multiple tools on Azure, which is a very good feature of Azure. Our Palo Alto firewall and other things are hosted in Azure. We're using Sentinel as well, which is a security tool that is being used by our SOC teams.
I've also used AWS, and I find Azure to be more Windows-driven. Although Azure is newer as compared to AWS, it is growing fast. Microsoft is working towards the betterment of Azure.
What needs improvement?
As compared to AWS, Azure can improve its functionality. In terms of the feature list, it is still lacking a bit as compared to AWS. AWS supports lots of types of operating systems, which Azure is still catching up with. Azure is mainly focused on the Windows system, and it is not yet there in terms of integration with other operating systems like Linux, Unix. Azure is slowly catching up.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with Azure for the last five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Lots of glitches are still there. Microsoft is constantly working to resolve those. It is a new product as compared to AWS, so, obviously, it would have some glitches. Three years ago, it was full of bugs. It is much better and stable now.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. We've got around 450 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is very good. Their response is very good. At the end of the day, we're a business, and their business support is pretty good.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is quite straightforward. It is not at all hard.
We've got a third-party maintenance company that actually maintains our Azure space.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is not cheap. Its price could be a little bit less.
What other advice do I have?
It is a cloud solution at the end of the day. People can pick up any cloud solution, but Azure is renowned. Azure and AWS are the main competitors in the cloud market now. AWS comes first, and Azure comes after that. If your solution is predominantly in the Linux space, you should go for AWS. If you are primarily Windows-based, you should go for Azure.
I would rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Cloud Arquitect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simple to set up, and very scalable but a bit complicated for large organizations
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is very simple to set up."
- "The solution needs a more integrated password feature."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution as a single point to check all our application metrics from tool to application.
What is most valuable?
The solution is very simple to set up.
What needs improvement?
Right now, in Azure, with the solution they offer, it's a bit complicated.
The application response time in particular consumes a lot of memory in terms of the CPU and application response time.
The control administration, every single control, every single application or service, has its independent dashboard. It's a bit complex to set up. It's simple to set up, however, when you want a metric for tracking or reporting, it's a bit difficult.
We've had issues with the login feature and have been looking into other solutions due to that ongoing problem.
The solution needs a more integrated password feature.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability isn't that good as compared to AWS. Azure just seems to have more issues in general. It's not the worst, however, it's definitely not the best. We need to make a plan in case the percentage goes down.
We sometimes have issues with the Azure login. It's been a problem for the last few years. We've also had a data center fail.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution is good. I personally haven't faced any constraints. Therefore, if a company needs to expand, I don't believe there to be a problem in it doing so.
I'm not sure of how many users are actually using the solution at our organization.
I'm not sure if we plan to increase usage or not.
How are customer service and technical support?
I haven't been in touch with technical support, and therefore can't really speak to their responsiveness or knowledge about the product.
In terms of documentation, we're making our own in-house. We are creating the policies and procedures for how our monitoring should be and we are creating an inventory of which services we have and which metrics each service must have. It's a work in progress.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We're currently looking into different solutions as we've had some issues with Azure over the last few years.
We may have previously used a different solution, however, I might have been new to the company at the time and don't recall what it was.
How was the initial setup?
It's really very straightforward to set up the solution. It's not complex at all. You just need to set up the features your need.
The solution doesn't require too much maintenance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We usually use the subscription model Azure has. However, that doesn't include monitoring. We're looking at a new budget for that. It would be apart from the main Azure consumption.
However, I don't know the exact pricing. It's not part of the work I do.
What other advice do I have?
We're Azure partners. We have a business relationship with the company.
I'd advise others that Azure is good for monitoring for a small to mid-size organization. For those, it works well. For very complex scenarios, it will be difficult to manage.
I'd rate the solution six out of ten. It's much to complicated for larger organizations.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Architecture and Solutions Director at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
A stable platform with instant availability of resources
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the instant availability of resources."
- "The initial setup is quite complex because of the number of options that are available."
What is our primary use case?
We are a system integrator and Microsoft Azure is one of the products we implement for our clients. We offer a service for DR solutions with it.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the instant availability of resources.
What needs improvement?
The initial setup is quite complex because of the number of options that are available.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Azure is a very stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution. Our clients are small and medium-sized businesses.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is complex because there are a lot of options used to configure it.
What other advice do I have?
I can recommend this solution because of its capability and scalability. In terms of improvements, I cannot think of any specific requests for new features at this time.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Consultant at Rpc Data
Easy to add on services, relatively stable, and very scalable
Pros and Cons
- "Microsoft offers free courses and an exam on their products. Many of my colleagues who use Microsoft Azure take advantage of those free courses to help them learn about the solution in depth."
- "It would be nice if there was an on-premises version of the solution, and it wasn't just cloud-based."
What is our primary use case?
This solution is used to migrate data to the cloud. They have a few different ways that this can happen. You can use the public cloud or private cloud, for example. Or you can use a hybrid as well.
If you want to add some services, they have that capability to do that. Even if you want to improve your network, and you want to add your storage, or you want to maybe improve the speed of your infrastructure, they have that capability.
What is most valuable?
They own a SaaS model. They have applications such as Microsoft Office 365, which is a cloud service. When I was using Oracle Linux desktop, I was still able to use Microsoft Office 365 to do my daily work.
If I want to send a Word document, I don't have to install anything. I don't have to hassle with the installation of Microsoft Office in Linux. It's quite a process to do that. However, if we have the internet, we can do everything we need to without having to install anything. You can do all of the Office activities including PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook. It's very easy.
Microsoft offers free courses and an exam on their products. Many of my colleagues who use Microsoft Azure take advantage of those free courses to help them learn about the solution in depth.
What needs improvement?
It would be nice if there was an on-premises version of the solution, and it wasn't just cloud-based. Oracle, for example, has both capabilities. Some people don't understand the cloud, or are hesitant, and this might prevent them from adopting the product. Also, migrating to the cloud can bring a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of trouble to some companies. Some prefer that their data is not moved from the premises, or have requirements to that effect. If Microsoft could address these concerns, that would be ideal.
The solution has a lot of terms of services. These should be simplified.
For how long have I used the solution?
I haven't been using the solution for very long. In fact, it has only been a few weeks at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's quite reliable for our organization.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have noticed that they have the capability to scale. Even you are not using some of the services, you can still scale. Let's say, you have bought large storage, and you notice that you no longer want to use it anymore. You have the chance to reduce that and not have to pay for more than you need. You pay as you go, therefore they have the capability to accommodate shifts in sizing. Most of the cloud providers do have that capability whereby you don't have to use something that you do not need.
We do plan to use the solution into the future as it does offer us good flexibility.
How are customer service and technical support?
I'm not really on the technical side of things, and therefore I don't generally deal with technical support. Therefore, I can't speak to their level of knowledge or their responsiveness.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, I've also used Oracle and IBM.
How was the initial setup?
I personally didn't have to do an installation.
All you need to do is read the documentation, and everything you need to know is right there. It's quite straightforward in that sense.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution offers a freemium model. There are some things that they can give for free, however, if you exceed certain levels in terms of what you were initially given, then they have to charge you for that. That's why, usually when you create the account, they want you to use your credit card so that when you exceed your limit, they will be able to charge you for that.
When you want to do the license, there is a certain amount that you need to pay. The pricing varies according to usage and differs in terms of the services and the models that you need. For those who need a platform as a service for developers, or infrastructure as a service, or software as a service, they provide for those scenarios. However, the pricing will depend on the service that you want.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a consultant. I work as a partner with Microsoft.
We're using the latest version of the solution at this time.
I would recommend the solution to others.
I'd rate it nine out of ten overall.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Sr Solutions Architect at System Soft Technologies, LLC
Information protection is great as is the ability to provide temporary and secure access to vendors
Pros and Cons
- "Good information protection feature."
- "Could be more user friendly; initial setup is difficult to understand."
What is our primary use case?
The product is being used for document sharing and archiving. The company wants their customers to be able to pull certain documents that they put on file. The idea is that through active directory B2B, they will offer access to the different files and customers will be able to pull the files they need from the server. The company uses information protection to make sure that only the right people have access to the right files. We are integrators, mainly on the software side. We are partners with Microsoft Azure and I'm a senior solution architect.
How has it helped my organization?
The company has different vendors that they bring in. This product has made it easier to onboard those individuals and to provide access to them when needed and then to basically cut them off when the time comes. The way they have it set up, documents can't be downloaded. They are only accessible online but can be accessed from anywhere so the company doesn't have to worry about setting up VPNs and the like. They provide a username, password, a two-factor authentication and that enables access.
What is most valuable?
Information protection is a good feature because you can label different documents and different files, and that allows them to put like NDA files in a specific bucket, as opposed to just regular, safe or confidential storage.
What needs improvement?
This solution is not user friendly to set up and it's difficult to understand, particularly with regard to information protection and the sort of licensing needed to utilize it. Simplification would go a long way.
I'd like to see them improve on the watermarking. There's a feature that allows you to watermark documents that are checked out. Currently it watermarks a document with whoever publishes it. For example, if you wanted to watermark the email address, it doesn't watermark with the person checking out the file, but with the person publishing the document. It would be more valuable if the watermarking was related to the person checking out the document, in case it leaks out.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for several years and on my most recent project, for the past six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability has been great. We haven't had any issues whatsoever with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As far as I know, scalability is fine. Our current customer isn't huge so I can't speak to enterprise size customers. It's not infinite scalability, but it is Azure Cloud. If you need more storage, you buy more storage.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is fairly complex. There is a ton of documentation, but once you get through that it's really not difficult, it's just not intuitive. The product requires better documentation that explains things. I think a lot of it has to do with the licensing requirements. It's not obvious and so you can be following a step-by-step tutorial and still not get it right because the software requirements aren't right but it doesn't give you that in clear text.
You can probably set this up within 30 minutes, realistically, as long as you know all the steps. Unfortunately, it took about four or five hours to troubleshoot the situation because we didn't understand what the license requirements were. We had to go and obtain those licenses and try it a second time. It'll be fine now because we understand it but there are certain things like having to be a security administrator within the roles and responsibility matrix, and that's not really outlined in the documentation.
What was our ROI?
The company wanted it to deploy rapidly. They didn't want to spend a lot on this project to buy storage, and clear that storage, ensuring that it was 100% secure. This was either going to be a very short-term project or it was going to blow up to something large and they weren't sure which direction it was going to go. Enabling them to use OPEX spend just to utilize what they need when they need it at a low cost, was super valuable to them.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend anyone wanting to implement this solution to carry out background homework on active directory, on information access management (IAM), and then understand the licensing before you deploy. That aside, it's pretty straightforward. I've learned that setting up secure documents doesn't have to be difficult as long as you take into account those caveats of understanding your licensing and active directory.
I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
User at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Easy to set up, and offers flexibly that gives you good value for your money
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of this solution are the value for money and flexibility."
- "In the next release, I would like to see better security."
What is our primary use case?
We are resellers of Intel-based processors and Microsoft software. We offer Windows 10, Windows 2019 server, and HCI for example.
We are a technology-based company and we set things up for people. We are dealing with educational establishments, and moving them from on-premises situations to the cloud.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of this solution are the value for money and flexibility.
What needs improvement?
In the next release, I would like to see better security.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been selling the latest version of Microsoft Azure for six months.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
On average, there are approximately 1000 users per site.
We plan to continue selling this solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have used technical support from Microsoft, although we do all of the technical support for our customers, ourselves.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Microsoft Azure, we did not sell any other product.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward.
We do hundreds of deployments and each individual one is different.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing model is subscription-based and it's not an expensive solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft Azure a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Channel Manager (Engineer) at Dataguard MEA
Carbonite Availability reduced overhead and maintenance
Pros and Cons
- "It was very user-friendly when setting up the virtual machines and console. It was an easy task for my team to create virtual servers and start replications."
- "It should have cost optimization tools. Customers are required to use third-party applications to avoid usage complications."
What is our primary use case?
Implementation of Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery solution, where we used Carbonite Availability as the primary tool and Microsoft Azure as secondary/target location.
Real-time replication configured from one point to another for business continuity and high availability.
Altogether, there are eight servers in the local premise which are entirely replicated to the cloud. The kept cloud servers are idle until a disaster happens with the on-premise servers. The project setup was successful even with real-time testing. It was done with automatic failover and failback.
How has it helped my organization?
It has improved our organization.
What is most valuable?
It was very user-friendly when setting up the virtual machines and console. It was an easy task for my team to create virtual servers and start replications.
We able to manage resources wisely with a third-party tool.
What needs improvement?
It should have cost optimization tools. Customers are required to use third-party applications to avoid usage complications. Also, charging on downloads is not a good option, especially when it moves to a production server.
For how long have I used the solution?
Two years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Achieving business continuity was a nightmare. Project was done for a supermarket chain where they kept one machine in every branch directly connected to remote data center. The connection was done using VDIs. Whenever there is glitch at the remote data center, the entire infrastructure was in trouble, which in turns affected the business a lot. Setting up a disaster recovery data center was an expensive plan and maintenance was too heavy. Connecting Carbonite Availability with Azure was an easy options, as it reduced overhead and maintenance.
What was our ROI?
Monthly billing convenience reduced cost overheads up to 70 percent.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Cloud Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Stable, easy to setup, and quick to deploy with a good interface
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the interface."
- "The price could be improved as well as the interface speed, and technical support."
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the interface.
What needs improvement?
The price could be improved as well as the interface speed, and technical support.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is a scalable product.
We have more than ten users.
How are customer service and technical support?
I am not satisfied with the support. It seems that they outsource to different companies with people who don't even know the basics.
You get asked several questions but never get any resolutions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy and it only takes a few minutes to install.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost is a little high and can be more competitive.
What other advice do I have?
Microsoft Azure is a good service and I recommend it.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Principal Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
This helps us meet multiple requirements other PaaS solutions do not but there is a lot of room for improvement
Pros and Cons
- "It is a flexible solution that is straightforward to use."
- "Stability can suffer in the context of a large architecture."
What is our primary use case?
I work with our enterprise architecture. In my network, there are almost 400 total applications. I have been working here for almost six months on a network migration and in those six months, I have been working with many of those applications that have been included with the involvement of Azure in the migration.
We are migrating everything from the old network to a new architecture. There are multiple teams that I work with and people work with me throughout the organization. I review all the target architectures and the deployment and everything that comes along with the pieces of the migration that involve Azure. Any issues, large or small, I have to look into. These issues might be simple certificate issues or they may involve multiple interfaces that need to be used for a solution.
Because we have a very complex system, it is not easy to complete the migration. The landscape also has a mixture of different technologies and platforms. If I have to customize, I just get a Terraform script or ARM template from a developer who is assigned to that task. I review all that stuff that they give to me.
When we went to the version of Azure that we use now, there are certain solutions that we created. If we had trouble, we worked with Microsoft to create that solution for our organization and the problems that needed to be solved.
We define our own solutions with Microsoft that are not available in the open market. Because of the way we have used Azure, we do not really have a very focused end-product. It is a highly customized product that we have built using many tools.
Azure is now a mixture of solutions. There are certain applications, which are IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) applications, where we just go and use them. Then there are certain applications that are a mixture of IaaS and PaaS (Platform as a Service). For certain parts, we use private clouds, public clouds, or hybrid clouds. We originally wanted to use more public clouds, but as we proceed, we are moving into more hybrid mechanisms. In the future, I don't know exactly what direction we will take because the technologies and the climate are changing so quickly.
But right now, we are only using Azure with images being created from the existing architecture. For Azure, we use private cloud, public cloud, and mixed, or hybrid cloud as needed and all of these work together.
In the future, we may go for some specific function-based services or even open-market APIs. We can use open APIs with Azure. API management is also possible. So there are a lot of permutations and combinations that go with each application based on sizing and NFR (Non-functional Requirements) validation.
For Microsoft Azure, we use the product itself as a platform, I work mostly with their services. These can be PaaS services or DNS services, monitoring services, storage services — basically all the supporting services that are available to us with Azure. Anything that is not available, we try to build on PaaS. If the services we want are not available, I have to do a complete fabrication.
So we use mostly PaaS services for most of the supporting services and then we work further in solution optimization, which is something we can accomplish through Azure. Ultimately all that depends on the budget. If a company is ready to spend on a cloud solution, an ROI (Return on Investment) model helps. The amount of customizations and the real need for a solution comes out of the realities of the ROI.
Our contracts are based on supplying solutions for what the customer needs. If they have selected that a particular application will be available and make this a system mandate which we have to flow, then we have to keep those applications. Azure is one of the tools that we are using to help make these kinds of customizations and to meet their expectations after the migration.
How has it helped my organization?
Azure gives us a different form of PaaS to work with during our migration and helps us to meet multiple requirements that current solutions do not provide in any one product.
What is most valuable?
One of the most valuable things about Azure, I think, is that it is pretty straightforward. There are well-defined processes and it is not a bad product to work with. I only work on Azure right now most of the time. I cannot directly compare it with other solutions in the present situation because it is not always practical to consider every solution. Certain platforms on the market are very strong with other services. For example, Kubernetes on RedHat Openhift is better for working with AWS. But I have to ask from a usability, a complexity and a budget standpoint if that is really required.
If I do my work and my applications are sorted out well in advance, I do not have any issues. From a user perspective — not from a cloud architect or enterprise architect perspective — my requirements are being met. As long as these requirements are met, I do not see anything as a showstopper. If there is a showstopper which I think I absolutely can not solve with Azure and I think another solution would handle, then possibly we may go into a multi-cloud scenario.
That is also a limitation for our organization. The goal is never to seek complexity. Personally, I think there is no direct comparison between what solution is better and what solution is worse. There are only solutions that work or are capable of doing something and those solutions which can not do it, or were not designed to do it, or do not want their product to do it, et cetera.
Part of my place in working with these solutions as part of my process is working with products I am comfortable with. So the more that I use Azure, the more comfortable I get with what it can do as a solution, and the more comfortable I am using it. If I started using AWS more, I would get more comfortable with AWS and maybe incorporate that more heavily in the solutions.
What needs improvement?
There are some small things that could be done to improve Azure. I think they should actually do more to implement function as a service. It is a completely separate capability that they currently do not address. Function as a service can be a completely different scheme altogether than PaaS or IaaS which it does quite well.
For an example of a FaaS, I think the Azure product can be stronger in terms of storage. I would like to see it have better management systems as a service specifically for managing documents. Right now they are handled as a more generalized object.
Say Azure came out with Microsoft Document Management and it was very strong as a service. It would not have to be deployed as a complete infrastructure. I would be able to use that as a service inside my organization and it is a product that any organization can use.
The question is what is the separate USP (Unique Selling Point) that Microsoft will provide to the user that would fit a unique need when making FaaS solutions available. Document management systems have already been proven to be very popular by Google. Microsoft Office uses OneDrive storage. There may be a better way to promote document management in a more general PaaS. Sometimes it is very useful to virtualize a platform or an infrastructure, but in the same way, it is sometimes valuable to virtualize a function. Applications may be a collection of functions.
It is this type of branching out of services that Azure can do within the structure they already have.
They are targeting Azure into specific domains and not working as much with open-source as they could. That would be helpful. I think eventually this approach will just drive the competition away. If I have a product that is very good for manufacturing as a function — something like is being done with Edge — it might be beneficial for Azure to be able to tie in this FaaS and let manufacturing clients start working with the solution without having to reach outside of Azure. Right now that I do not see that happening and it is an opportunity that Microsoft is missing with Azure.
For how long have I used the solution?
I am responsible for designing our migration, so I have to work with Azure to define the parts of that solution. I had previously been using AWS mostly for personal services so I was familiar with PaaS platforms, but I have now also been using Azure exclusively for the last six months to supplement the functionality we require.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is stable. There are a few qualifications attached to that.
I think the stability of Azure varies depending on the workloads. It is more stable from the perspective of how it behaves in a mid-size deployment. For a very, very large implementation, I have yet to see that same kind of inherent stability. I believe it is because of the complexity of the client's system or architecture.
You may be able to say that if it is more of a Microsoft product landscape, then possibly it is more stable in general. The more that there is a mixture of technologies, then it will tend to be less stable. No application can be stable in every circumstance.
As the project I am engaged in is very large, we have experienced some episodes of instability. We solve the stability problems as we go along to a great extent. But I think there are a lot of situations that have to be dealt with in real-time. Though we have direct contact with a Microsoft team architect, it is difficult for them at times to just jump in and solve an issue. You can not usually solve a problem instantly looking down at it from 55,000 feet when the situation on the ground is very, very complex.
At first, they only have generalized solutions to your problem. I think they need an extension of the existing team. This would be like a core team to work with client organizations to do case studies to define patterns in what is causing instabilities.
Because Azure is cloud technology and cloud comes with its own problems, these bleed over into Azure stability. All these patterns that contribute to instability have to come out in order to be solved. As Microsoft collects more case studies and more knowledge of where these problems tend to occur, this should enable them to stabilize the product against those issues.
Overall, I would say Microsoft Azure is a stable solution, but even as a stable solution, it usually has some bugs or glitches.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As of today, we have almost 1,000 people using the solution. We have a very big migration project that will last for the next four to five years before it is completed. They have many applications and many users for those applications. If the volume of users or applications were to scale, that should not be a problem.
How are customer service and technical support?
I do not really have much direct contact with the Azure or Microsoft support teams. We have a separate team for that. I have a great architect that I work with here (Sweeden). But if an issue comes up, the application team goes to work on it to support the resolution. It is their option to contact Azure to raise that issue or resolve it themselves.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I was using AWS before Azure, but I was using it mostly for my own personal needs. I was deploying my own applications. I used it for about two years but not from a company perspective. I deployed my own applications in the public cloud and loaded them there for use at a personal level.
In the company right now, I am only using Microsoft Azure. The company itself is using everything, really. At this point, my experience in the company is specialization as the person who is helping to utilize Azure.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was simple and it is simple for a simple application. If I want to build with a simple application, I simply go do that. But if I have a very heavy interface-based application, then the choices become more difficult and involved.
If I have a WebSphere application, that is easy. A complex platform or a complex interface dependence becomes difficult to implement because of restrictions. If I can not simply go and deploy as it is, obviously it is more complex to deploy in the system.
For a small company with a typical landscape of Microsoft technology, it becomes very easy to work with Azure. It is possible to go through that setup by yourself and test your servers and the entire functionality.
After deployment, you will require maintenance. We can not simply have a production list and push everything out. You need pre-production, testing, and then deployment. All that has to be done on Azure.
There are a lot of things you will have to work out with security certificates. Meanwhile, things keep on changing in the product itself. New upgrades keep on rolling out. If the old version does not support the new upgrade, then you will need to get involved with patching and other upgrades to take care of the issues that are introduced.
We have a dedicated team for maintenance. We know we need to do testing and that is why we created tasks for that. But, generally, I think complexities in the setup depend upon what applications you are building. Simple applications and simple systems make for simple deployment.
What about the implementation team?
We are working with the vendor directly. We also have contacts with Microsoft. Microsoft directly provides us all the tools and information we need for implementations.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing of Azure depends on the build of what you prepare. You can optimize everything, and with Azure, you can optimize your utility and costs. For example, say you create a subscription and you want to do more backups and you want a private cloud for that. This will affect your cost differently than if you do not add the backups with Azure or if you add the services with a public or hybrid cloud.
We have very good, large contracts with big organizations. We do very high-level analytics and modeling to predict outcomes. For example, we may show that a certain solution that we implement with Azure will be likely to reduce a company's cost from the current level to 50% over the next five years. That, to me, is important when considering the cost of a subscription. It is not just the cost perspective that is important, but the ROI as well.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend Azure as a solution because it is a popular product by a major brand and it is very easy to use. I think those people I would recommend it to should normally be those who understand the cloud and the advantages and disadvantages. I use it for a lot of things and I do not see any problems. I love it now as a solution so I would recommend it. But if I have a different experience with another very large migration project using a different product, I would have to compare Azure with that. I may get more comfortable with the other product for reasons I have not discovered yet.
On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Microsoft Azure as a seven-out-of-ten. It is a good product and I love using it but it could do even more and has a lot of possibilities to grow as part of a relatively new technology. The future is more open than closed to the possibilities.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Easy to use, stable, and the technical support is good
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is that it is easy to use."
- "The pricing can be reduced."
What is our primary use case?
We are a software development company and the primary use case of this solution is to create applications for our customers using the MSDN premium.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is that it is easy to use.
What needs improvement?
The pricing can be reduced.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for between three and five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is stable and I haven't noticed any issues with it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is good.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing for us is higher because we are using IaaS.
What other advice do I have?
Depending on the project requirements, I would recommend using Azure.
I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Product Architect at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
ExpressRoute makes it easy to connect to services, but it could be more user-friendly
Pros and Cons
- "I like the ExpressRoute because that makes it easy to configure connectivity to Azure-hosted services."
- "Azure could be made more user-friendly."
What is our primary use case?
We are a service provider and Azure is one of the products that I use to assist my clients.
What is most valuable?
I like the ExpressRoute because that makes it easy to configure connectivity to Azure-hosted services.
What needs improvement?
Azure could be made more user-friendly. For example, the configuration wizard should be more intuitive for the users.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for about 18 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This product is stable enough.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability-wise, we have not had any problems.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have been in touch with Microsoft technical support and I would say that they are average.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am also working with AWS and I find that it is more user-friendly. I am a fan of AWS and although it depends on the use cases and requirements, we generally implement AWS more often than Azure.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was fairly simple. If we did have any issues then we would consult with Microsoft Professional Services, or some of our cloud architects, just to figure out how to resolve them.
We follow the Microsoft update paths. There isn't any maintenance required because it's a managed service and the providers take care of it.
What other advice do I have?
For the most part, Microsoft Azure works well. They are constantly upgrading their services. That said, I don't think that it's perfect.
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solutions Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
A customizable solution with a good interface and helpful support
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are the interface and customizability."
- "Dashboards and reporting could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We are a solution provider and Microsoft Azure is one of the technologies that we help our clients to implement. For example, when one of our customers wants to migrate from on-premises to the cloud, we assist them with the process. Once they decide on technology, we build the solution.
Our clients implement Azure to use as Infrastructure as a Service.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are the interface and customizability.
The approach used for cloud migration is something that I like.
Documentation and community support are good.
What needs improvement?
Dashboards and reporting could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Azure for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Azure is a stable system.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There are no issues with scalability. We have a range of customers that vary in size from small to medium-sized businesses, as well as enterprise-level organizations.
How are customer service and technical support?
I am happy with the good support that we are getting. I have not been in contact with them directly but some of my colleagues have dealt with them.
How was the initial setup?
The installation and initial setup are easy. We implemented over the course of a few days.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Reducing the price would be of benefit to our customers.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for anybody who is considering this solution is to do a proof of concept first. This is what I suggest to all of our customers, especially before migrating to the cloud. It will ensure that it meets the requirements.
I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Principal Enterprise Architect at a construction company with 201-500 employees
Easy to build connectors but they should offer more customization
Pros and Cons
- "It comes with a lot of ready-made studies that we can connect with other existing Microsoft applications, for example, Office, Outlook, Chatline, and OneDrive. Everything is behind the scenes running with Azure. It's easy to build the connectors."
- "They are a bit closed on the customization side. If they open the customization then it will be very good."
What is most valuable?
It comes with a lot of ready-made studies that we can connect with other existing Microsoft applications, for example, Office, Outlook, Chatline, and OneDrive. Everything is behind the scenes running with Azure. It's easy to build the connectors.
What needs improvement?
They are a bit closed on the customization side. If they open the customization then it will be very good.
It covers pretty much the similar problems that we face in many areas of Azure. If we are planning to use some of the Azure applications within our organization, there are some places that we need to complain about a complaint. Because of the design of Microsoft, we were not able to make this complaint. So, we are not able to use that interface.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Azure for two years.
How was the initial setup?
The Azure setup itself is a big procedure, but once that setup is done, the adoption is basic, allowing developers to use the Azure platform for their resource site. Then we slowly open the Azure for the website and we slowly allow Azure to impact our office.
What other advice do I have?
We don't have customer reviews of some of those applications. They should provide a lot of understanding. If reviewing and rating also becomes one of the alternatives, I think that will be a big win for them.
They are loaded with functionalities. I would rate Azure a seven out of ten.
They are very open with the options, but customers are not there with the road map. There are too many options. That confusion is a con of the solution.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Head of Architecture - Digital at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Time to market is fast compared back to the traditional on-premise hosting but it needs to mature
Pros and Cons
- "The time to market is fast compared back to the traditional on-premise hosting. That is one of the better things I can say because there is no need to worry. The Pack services will enable it to start immediately."
- "There were also a lot of constraints with the serverless parts."
How has it helped my organization?
The time to market is fast compared back to the traditional on-premise hosting. That is one of the better things I can say because there is no need to worry. The Pack services will enable it to start immediately.
What is most valuable?
I think Azure is good. We're exploring the Cosmos DB for the dealer distribution, which is in a project phase. We are happy with their services.
What needs improvement?
They should enable more other products to enable other commercial products as a Pack services, from the database side, more from the security perspective. Some of the databases don't have the features that Azure SQL has. Those parts have to enabled.
There were also a lot of constraints with the serverless parts. They are far behind compared to AWS.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Azure for the last three years.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is a bit clumsy. Their time to respond is not that much great.
How was the initial setup?
In terms of the UCs, they are very cumbersome. It's not very user friendly.
Each deployment takes around ten minutes. We do around 300 a day.
What other advice do I have?
If you look at it from the cloud product perspective, AWS is first. There is no doubt about it, and Azure is in the second position, and Google is the third.
Serverless is something that Microsoft needs to focus on, it is not so mature. That would be a game-changer.
I would rate it a seven out of ten. Not a ten because they need to improve in terms of maturity, flexibility, and user experience.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Data Architect at Prolifics
The data factory is a valuable feature; ML component could be improved
Pros and Cons
- "The data factory feature."
- "Auto ML could be improved technically."
What is our primary use case?
My current project is to carry out a comparison between Azure, AWS, and GCP, the three variants of cloud in order to analyze the best possible solution. In terms of costing and services I've been carrying out a comparison between all three. We are currently building the machine learning pipeline. We're partners with Microsoft and I'm a data architect.
What is most valuable?
The data factory is a valuable feature. I come from a hardcore Microsoft background so I was able to relate to the data factory best among all the components as it's close to my existing system.
What needs improvement?
I think the pricing model could be improved. I have that clarity with AWS but with Azure it's not that easy. If I am building a solution on Azure, the first question that stakeholders will ask me is about the cost. If I'm using multiple services of Azure, then how do I figure that out given that it's all on cloud.
Technically, I would say there could definitely be improvement on the AutoML part, which is the machine learning component of Azure. I made a comparison between AutoML versus DataRobot, another vendor that provides machine learning. DataRobot is definitely ahead of Azure AutoML. Of course that could be because I'm using the licensed version of DataRobot versus the free version of AutoML but there does seem to be a gap.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for about six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't had any issues with stability. I think it's more to do with the volume of data that I am playing with which for now is only 5GB of data. I don't expect any problems.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I don't see any issue with scalability. But here again, on the cloud platform, there won't be any issue with the scalability but you need to understand the pricing. Once you have that, scaling will never be an issue.
How was the initial setup?
The complexity or otherwise of the initial setup depends on the person who will be using it. If you take the AutoAI services from other vendors, those are more graphical, more eye pleasing versus what Microsoft offers and less complicated to implement. With Azure ML, values have to be manually fed into the columns and that's clearly going to be more time consuming.
What other advice do I have?
There are multiple players in the market and this seems to be a good solution. It really depends on the use case and on the customer. I would personally choose AWS over Azure because that's where my experience is and I'm more familiar with AWS.
I would rate this solution a seven out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
AVP (Enterprise Architecture) at National Stock Exchange of India Limited
Will enable us to move on-premise servers into the cloud to hold data
Pros and Cons
- "We are going to use Microsoft Azure to move some on-premise servers into the cloud so that our data can be held there."
- "Microsoft Azure can be pretty advanced and difficult to understand. I would like it to be simplified. The licensing especially needs to be simplified."
What is our primary use case?
We are going to use Microsoft Azure to move some on-premise servers into the cloud so that our data can be held there.
What is most valuable?
We are now trying to decide exactly this. Where can it improve our daily business?
What needs improvement?
Microsoft Azure can be pretty advanced and difficult to understand. I would like it to be simplified. The licensing especially needs to be simplified.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have not been using Microsoft Azure for very long, about three months. My company has asked me to look for a better solution in terms of security perspective. They have asked me to technically go through to see if there is a real need to change or not, and what the new features are.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Microsoft Azure has been very good from what we have seen.
How was the initial setup?
I have not actually gone through the initial setup yet. So I am trying to figure that out. They want me to go through the training so I can understand the setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
So far we are satisfied with the pricing of Microsoft Azure.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are also looking into other platforms. Perhaps an open-source platform.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft Azure at an eight out of a scale of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
System Administrator at A&T Systems
Offers multi-factor-authenticated single sign-on and the technical support is good
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the single sign-on with multifactor authentication."
- "The subscription licensing is very complex and we would like to have it simplified."
What is our primary use case?
Everything we have is hosted on Azure, include our email, as well as applications that we use like SharePoint and Office 365.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the single sign-on with multifactor authentication. Our staff uses an accounting system, they visit different bank sites, and the sales team uses Salesforce We want to be able to access all of these things with a single sign-on. In total, there are more than 50 sites. We are still evaluating this and it is not in production, yet.
What needs improvement?
The cost of Microsoft Azure could be lowered.
The subscription licensing is very complex and we would like to have it simplified.
The ease of configuration and use should be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Azure for about four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Azure is quite stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would say that this solution is scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support for Exchange and Sharepoint is quite good. Their response time is really good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
A scalable solution that requires minimal administrative effort
Pros and Cons
- "The scalability is good."
- "I would like to see more advanced functionality in terms of information security."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use Azure for our ERP system and DR usage. It is set up for multiple production workloads.
What is most valuable?
This solution requires minimal administrative effort.
The scalability is good.
The most valuable feature is Azure SQL.
What needs improvement?
Improvements need to be made with respect to the availability of third-party services.
I would like to see more advanced functionality in terms of information security.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Azure for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There is room for improvement in terms of stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is one of the best features. We have thousands of users.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have been in contact with technical support and would rate them better than average. I find that it takes a long time to reach somebody who is a subject matter expert. This is because they first need to escalate requests from the level one or level two helpdesk. For the problems that we have experienced, we needed support directly from people with expertise.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward and the deployment can be completed within short time. Now we can deploy most components/services within a day or two.
What about the implementation team?
When we first implemented Azure, we engaged with a third-party system integrator. Now, however, we can do everything ourselves. We have approximately five people who do the maintenance of the cloud infrastructure.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of Microsoft Azure is pretty good. Among the top market players, it’s usually the cheapest or the one after. Our usage is more than $1,000,000 USD annually.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that it can be a good start for SME, up to MNC who needs to see their full environment, rather than just a particular system or area.
Overall, this is a good solution but there is room for improvement.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Data Engineer at Prodxia
An easy interface that is helpful for creating minimal environments to develop POCs
Pros and Cons
- "The incorporation of several kinds of storage, such as SSD Premium, enhanced the performance of machines."
- "Virtual networks might be improved by adding more rules for the validation of protocols and peripheral elements in security assurance."
What is our primary use case?
Our first deployment was CRM Dynamics, and it was done in the same way that we launched the previous version. However, it was easier than the last migration because the ease of preparing new machines with the wizard contributed to the quick implementation. It also includes great hardware specifications such as SSD Premium, which wasn't there until last year.
How has it helped my organization?
Azure has helped in the setup of operations with minimal environments for developing a proof of concept. The POC is the most useful and charming feature to get a minimal valuable product for all deployments. Customer satisfaction did increase the performance of sales, meanwhile, customer requirements were optimized.
What is most valuable?
This solution has an easy and (almost) intuitive administration interface to set up and deploy elements.
The incorporation of several kinds of storage, such as SSD Premium, enhanced the performance of machines.
The Machine Learning library for remote calls using REST and SOAP, as well as the legacy integrations of hybrid clouds are useful.
What needs improvement?
Virtual services might be improved by adding more rules for the validation of protocols and peripheral elements in security assurance. This feature could help to gain more visibility in compliance validation using cross-referencing between firewalls and legacy systems. By example, only mobile devices with Windows at phone, laptops, or tablets running either Windows 10 or Windows Mobile can print using Windows Server Hybrid Cloud Print, and this possibility cannot apply to another devices due to the feature uses an UNC path. UNC means for Universal Naming Convention, a standard for identifying servers, printers and other resources in a network. The UNC uses double slashes or backslashes to precede the name of the computer.
For how long have I used the solution?
Four years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I was using hybrid solutions with several web hosting services, but several customers could not be accommodated. They needed to solve the problem of migrating huge data centers with confidential information, and the initial costs of proof of concepts were complicated if the isolation of every component relied on legacy systems.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated HostGator VPS before choosing this solution.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Country Manager at Orion Consultores C.A
The pricing Calculator feature is valuable and easy to use
Pros and Cons
- "Azure has improved my organization because it is a new technology and so the customers who don't have enough knowledge about the cloud delegate the administration of their cloud infrastructure to us. We incorporate and add a new service to our product lineup about how to manage their Azure. It impacts our business because we're able to incorporate this new service."
- "The interface is not easy to use. I'd like to see them develop a better interface, more graphical information about the resource and the consumer."
What is our primary use case?
We use Azure as an infrastructure service. Most of our customers have web servers but we also manage Azure for SAP R/3. It works fine. They do have a lot of options for SAP All-In-One, but we don't have as many options for SAP Business One. What Azure offers for Business One customers is too short to have enough servers certified. It works fine but it's not a complete solution for customers that use SAP Business One.
How has it helped my organization?
Azure has improved my organization because it is a new technology and so the customers who don't have enough knowledge about the cloud delegate the administration of their cloud infrastructure to us. We incorporate and add a new service to our product lineup about how to manage their Azure. It impacts our business because we're able to incorporate this new service.
What is most valuable?
The Pricing Calculator would be the most valuable feature. It's easy to use.
What needs improvement?
I would like to have more certified servers for SAP. Our customers need an easier interface to manage Azure. They don't have people who have cloud knowledge. The knowledge group is taking time and they use our services to manage the cloud data. Azure is built for auto services but it's not easy. The interface is not easy to use. I'd like to see them develop a better interface and more graphical information about the resource and the consumer.
There's a machine, the server. The smallest machine that they have has 112 GB of RAM. It is big for a customer. It has around 16 cores and a 112 GB of RAM. Amazon has a server with around 8 cores and 60 GB of RAM. The smallest certified machine for SAP Business One HANA in Amazon Web Services is 8 cores and 60 GB of RAM and Microsoft it's 16 and 112 GB of RAM. It's too big for a small customer. Because this machine is able to manage 50 concurrent users it's too big for a customer with 22 or 30 users.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Until now I have only had a few problems with stability. There was a problem with Azure Active Directory in the US central region that affected almost all of the data centers around two or three months ago but otherwise, it's good stability. The stability is good enough.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is fine. We tried to create services in the data center in Brazil and there was not enough space. There were not enough cores and RAM so we were not able to create it. We opened a ticket with technical service and they told to use another region.
We chose Azure because of its scalability. With Azure, we are able to use the size of a machine that we need.
How is customer service and technical support?
I haven't opened any tickets with technical support. The technical team opened most tickets but from what I hear, technical support has been fine. It could be better. They could improve the time it takes to respond but I have never heard about any issues from the technical guys about their support. They would prefer to get a faster response back because when you have a problem, you have your boss asking for updates so you need a fast answer.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's a very expensive machine and I would like for them to improve the price. There are smaller sized competitors who offer cheaper prices.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We didn't look at any other options because we are not business partners with other cloud solutions or providers. We only have Azure so we try to solve everything with Azure. If a customer asks us for a proposal to move or create some interesting tool in the cloud, we all use Azure. We never compared it to other cloud providers.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution a nine because they are always incorporating new alerts and new features. I wouldn't give it a ten because it's sometimes not easy to use and the price is not a fair price for the solution.
I don't know why customers think that Amazon is the best. I think that the customer thinks that the best option for cloud is an Amazon service and the second one is Microsoft. My advice to someone considering this or a similar solution is to be careful with Amazon because the customers think that they are always on the list.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Microsoft and Dev-ops Architect at Mphasis
Very easy to create a Kubernetes cluster
What is our primary use case?
Working Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to create a Kubernetes cluster.
We are maintaining two environments of Kubernetes cluster on Azure using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
We have used other managed PaaS services like ACS, Database, and monitoring, integrated with Jenkins for continuous integration and continuous deployment.
How has it helped my organization?
We are running our product which is deployed on Azure AKS cluster. This really helps us to drive more business from customers.
What is most valuable?
- It's very easy to create a Kubernetes cluster with the Azure Console
- Able to connect to the cluster using Azure PowerShell
- Able to connect to the cluster using kubectl
- Very good help from Microsoft Knowledge Base and also from the community
- Very good support from the Microsoft team
- Easy to manage as the core part is handled by Microsoft
- Easy to add/scale up the cluster with more nodes by using the Azure console window or through scripting
- Can integrate plugins with Jenkins for auto deployment
- Integrated with a lot of open source tools for easy deployments and other functionalities like logging, monitoring, etc.
What needs improvement?
Better logging part when deployments are crashed, even when the entire cluster is crashed.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Should always go with recommendations provided by Microsoft during the creation of new clusters. Otherwise, stability is an issue.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is very good.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is excellent. Recently, we have encountered a few issues however, the customer support team helped us very quickly to come out of it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously use a different solution. Kubernetes is the one we are using for container orchestration through Azure-managed Kubernetes service.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy; straightforward.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Software Architect at a security firm with 51-200 employees
Much easier than AWS to set up, change, and configure VMs.
Pros and Cons
- "Much more intuitive and more visual than AWS. More obvious where things are and how to change their configurations, etc."
- "Being able to set up, change and configure VMs is easy - a lot easier than in AWS."
- "Feedback and error messages make much more sense in Azure than in AWS."
- "There are a number of services offered by AWS that are not yet available on Azure."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
I compare it to AWS that I used prior to this. I find it much more intuitive, more visual, more obvious where things are and how to change their configurations, etc.
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
I get the impression there are a number of services offered by AWS that are not yet available on Azure, but it seems to be catching up pretty fast.
For how long have I used the solution?
Less than one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It seems to me that Azure is a little less stable than AWS but not so that it makes a difference, given how much time you save doing other stuff like configuring, etc.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Very easy to scale in and out but has unpredictable costing as a result. However, AWS is the same.
How are customer service and technical support?
I do not use tech support. I use online forums, etc.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
AWS. I started a new job.
How was the initial setup?
No, it is simpler in Azure than in AWS.
What about the implementation team?
In-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing is the worst aspect of both AWS and Azure. It is very difficult to predict costs in my experience. There is often a base price (for running a VM for example), but then you have to pay for data storage costs plus data transmission costs, etc. I would prefer to have a predictable monthly cost for unlimited storage within a bandwidth for example, but there isn't an easy way to predict costs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I evaluated Google Cloud too and compared AWS with Azure. Azure is definitely the best for me; I am more productive because I understand the tech architecture better.
What other advice do I have?
If you are a C#, .NET or SQL server person, do not even think about using AWS, use Azure instead. If you are more of a Linux/PHP/Java type of person, you may consider AWS as it works much better from the command line and much more like a Linux or Java environment.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
It was easy to deploy our applications on it. However, we are looking for better compatibility and scalability.
Pros and Cons
- "It was easy to deploy our applications on it."
- "We have faced some challenges trying to deploy a new ESP application."
What is our primary use case?
We wanted to deploy applications and have them interact with services on the back-end, so we deployed Azure for this. The performance has been quite good.
What is most valuable?
It was easy to deploy our applications on Azure. It provides more compatibility and scalability than the .NET application. This is why we chose to use Azure.
What needs improvement?
We are looking for the Azure to get involved in the case of other applications, like the Java application. Because it is predefined and has been set by Microsoft, who is providing better compatibility to the .NET application, so we are looking for the same from Azure for the Android app. Therefore, we are looking for better compatibility and scalability.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. I have not seen it have any downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have faced some challenges trying to deploy a new ESP application.
How is customer service and technical support?
The technical support was good. I would give them an eight out of 10 rating.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is very competitive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated AWS.
If I were advising a colleague in my organization who is looking for a solution and is comparing AWS and Azure, I would prefer that they go for Azure, or any software using Microsoft technologies because we have had good experiences with them. If I were advising on Java, I wouldn't advise him to specifically use another tool rather he should do research and use my comparison history on IT Central Station.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution a seven out of 10.
Most important criteria for selecting a vendor: The client will choose the license and buy it. We can try to convince them, but we can not compel them to use a specific vendor's license. Ultimately, the decision-maker is the client.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Web Developer at Indiana
This solution has the best website amongst all cloud computing platforms. It is simple to utilize, and one can release nearly anything, from app services to host sites
Pros and Cons
- "Azure has the best website amongst all cloud computing platforms. It is simple to utilize, and one can release nearly anything, from app services to host sites."
- "Establishing the account in the beginning was very difficult."
What is our primary use case?
We host various sites and utilize this solution for purchasing domains as well. It's simple to host small sites and back-end software applications on Azure instead of on regional servers
How has it helped my organization?
It has great deals of APIs for automation that we can utilize for managing our services. We implemented some custom tools that were developed in house and are extremely happy with the time that we now spend monitoring the websites.
What is most valuable?
Azure has the best website amongst all cloud computing platforms. It is simple to utilize, and one can release nearly anything, from app services to host sites.
What needs improvement?
Being a big item, it has it's own share of bugs. I had a great deal of difficulty establishing the account at first.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No
What was our ROI?
We are at 150% at this time, not considering the time that we concentrated on something else.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Yes, we searched Google and Amazon.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
DBA
As a DBA, the easy maintenance and backups are key
Pros and Cons
- "I come from the DBA side so for me it's the easy maintenance; backups are very easy as well."
- "I would like to see more databases on the cloud, what they call today Big Data should be there."
What is our primary use case?
Installation of SQL Server, Cloudera Hadoop, and MySQL. The performance has been great.
How has it helped my organization?
The benefit is the time to generate all these machines. It's in the cloud so I don't feel it.
What is most valuable?
I come from the DBA side so for me it's the easy maintenance; backups are very easy as well.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see more databases on the cloud, what they call today Big Data should be there. I think it's going in the right direction.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is great.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is also great.
How is customer service and technical support?
Personally, I have not used support, but the guys who do are happy with it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Cloudera.
What other advice do I have?
When choosing a vendor what's important to me are stability, a lot of features, variety, and good support.
My advice would be, try it using the free trial and I am sure you will be satisfied and take it.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Mobile Lead Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Puts the "scaffolding" in place and allows you to focus on the business solution
Pros and Cons
- "Scalability is definitely in need of improvement. Azure is a very good solution but it still lacks the performance of other cloud platforms."
- "Azure does not handle scalability as well as its competitors. Sometimes a 10 percent increase in a server with 20 percent of CPU usage pushes the server up to 100 percent load, and you start having performance issues."
- "We had issues with the Mobile Service ORM and the Azure SQL Database (cloud version of SQL Server). At times, the queries that are created automatically from the ORM mapping are not very well optimized for this database and that can lead to performance and stability issues. On occasion, the connection manager from the ORM does not handle the database connections very well."
What is our primary use case?
Azure Cloud App Services can be classified as a MEAP, Mobile Enterprise Application Platform. It is also a Platform As A Service solution. These Cloud PaaS services are the backbone and the back-end structure that you can use to build omnichannel applications (mobile + web SPA + Kiosk). Azure App Service eases the creation of flexible Express Node.js or .NET WCF microservices. It has an API based on OData and integrated security with OpenID Connect with federated or corporate login. If you need a quick mobile solution, particularly an enterprise mobile solution, this is a wonderful choice.
We use this solution as a template to build mobile, back-end-of-corporate-omnichannel apps.
How has it helped my organization?
When mobile is a necessity for an already-running corporate system, you do not want to lose time setting up a whole new environment and platform. You need something that can help you easily put in place all the scaffolding you need, and concentrate on the business solution that you are providing. Azure does this.
What is most valuable?
The time-to-market. Once you master the technology, you can create running, mobile back-ends in a few weeks. Additionally, it easily enables integration with legacy environments (like connecting to existing servers).
What needs improvement?
Scalability is definitely in need of improvement. Azure is a very good solution but it still lacks the performance of other cloud platforms.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We had issues with the Mobile Service ORM and the Azure SQL Database (cloud version of SQL Server). At times, the queries that are created automatically from the ORM mapping are not very well optimized for this database and that can lead to performance and stability issues. On occasion, the connection manager from the ORM does not handle the database connections very well.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Azure does not handle scalability as well as its competitors. Sometimes a 10 percent increase in a server with 20 percent of CPU usage pushes the server up to 100 percent load, and you start having performance issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
Microsoft allows you a certain number of tickets, depending on the cloud plan that you are paying for. If you have an available ticket, technical support is great, but if you happen to have none, it will be more difficult to find good support.
Once you gain a certain level of expertise on the platform, you will be able to handle most of the problems. Also, now that the platform is very open (Node.js + Express) it is easier to access good documentation and an excellent community.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We tried many solutions. We tried Kinvey and Kony but prices were absolutely prohibitive for our customers. We also tried BAASBOX which is now a (mostly) defunct open-source MBaaS solution.
We move forward with a .NET customized solution that we created ourselves but maintenance of a general platform requires a lot of work and we couldn’t afford to charge our customers for the required amount of work.
We tried AWS Mobile Services once but our customers preferred Microsoft Azure (their existing back-end was mainly implemented in .NET, and they preferred to stay in the Microsoft world).
We also built a solution with SAP Mobile gateway which is the safest choice for companies that have huge legacy systems already running on SAP.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very straightforward. You can very easily have an application up-and-running almost out-of-the-box. The learning curve is steeper once you need to start building more services or when you need to take care of performance issues.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost-benefit equation for Azure is very good, particularly for small applications. However, Microsoft should do much, much more to improve how costs are communicated and how to forecast them. The Azure Pricing Calculator is not useful.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We checked the big players in MBaaS, particularly Kony and Kinvey. Kony was extraordinary (circa 2013) but the price was prohibitive. Kinvey was also very good and prices were slightly better but not affordable at all for our customers. We started using WAMS, Windows Azure Mobile Services, the previous version of Azure App Service, which was one of the first MBaaS solutions. Microsoft improved a lot the platform with App Service.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Azure at nine out of 10. The previous version of Microsoft's mobile cloud platform, Mobile Service, had some security and scalability problems but the new version, App Service, has many improvements in these areas. It also uses open-source tools and allows developers to work in isolated environments, in their own workstations (without all the hassles and costs of putting the cloud into the developer’s cycle).
If the mobile application is not that big (up to 15 services) and time-to-market is very important, Azure App Service is a great solution. If you need heavy integration with an existing .NET legacy system, this solution will also work very nicely and will reduce costs. If you need to implement a much bigger system, my advice is that you should think about gathering a specialized team that has a very good grasp of the platform.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Gold Certified Microsoft Partner.
Network Manager / Senior Network Engineer at Warnock, Tanner & Associates
Azure has become a one stop shop for cloud computing and continuing to grow.
Pros and Cons
- "Storage has made remote access to files much more painless and easy."
What is our primary use case?
Currently we are hosting custom web applications, boxed applications, Azure VMs, Azure files for shared company files, Azure blob storage, Azure Active Directory with Active Directory sync, Single Sign On, and development and testing purposes.
How has it helped my organization?
Creating VMs for development has been huge since we ran out of resources locally. Creating Hybrid solutions provides us with greater confidence in higher availability. Storage has made remote access to files much more painless and easy. Using SSO has also been great reducing the number of passwords and locations required to use them.
What is most valuable?
Customized Dashboard, Site-to-site and point-to-Site VPN, Virtual Machines, Web Apps, SQL, SharePoint, Storage, Test/Dev environments.
What needs improvement?
Pricing is very difficult to guesstimate. With so many a la carte options and individual pricing it can be a hassle to understand. I constantly need to go over the report to find out where I can save money and what is eating up the monthly costs.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues with stability. Has been rock solid.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is Microsofts big advantage. At anytime you can scale up or down your servers or services growing them or shrinking them to your needs. You can even automate this process. I personally do not get into Enterprise solutions but they continue to add larger solutions frequently.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
First response is 2-4 hours. Staff is knowledgeable but can often be difficult to understand and slow. Although I do not call about routine issues and bring very complex problems there way. With that said I will say every issue does get resolved.
Technical Support:
I rate technical support 7/10. First response is 2-4 hours. Staff is knowledgeable but can often be difficult to understand. I have also found that a few of them try to e-mail you despite your request for a call. This causes much miscommunication and additional time your problem is not getting resolved.
I only give them an 7 because I have struggled a time or two with understanding their English or getting the ball rolling resolving my issue. This all really depends on the department you need.
I will say that they always get the issue resolved regardless of the complexity of the problem.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No I have not, but we chose Azure simply simply because we are Microsoft partners and get free Azure credits to work with. Microsoft is also a power player in cloud solution and a trusted name.
How was the initial setup?
Huge learning curve for me. I found just diving in was incredibly difficult. Much lab time required to understand how things work together. Once you get going however it all makes sense.
I also find the GUI to be more intuitive then AWS and feels better.
They are constantly changing the GUI while they continue migrating the ASM model to the ARM model. Since this is a living platform it can change from one day to the next adding features.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented all the solutions myself with a little research.
What was our ROI?
Microsoft does have special pricing for Development purposes. This does help reduce the monthly costs for our team.
As our local resources reach their end of life, we have moved servers and services to Azure. It becomes more of an operation expense as apposed to a capitol expense.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are MS partners. Depending on your partnership you may or may not get Visual Studio Enterprises licenses. Each license allows you to get a $150 Azure credit per month.
This has been great for our developers and I to put in to practice some Azure solutions.
There are many other free credits available as well. Do some searching.
If you need to purchase Azure they do have a pricing calculator that may help you determine costs. https://azure.microsoft.com/en...
Have you used Azure Data Governance tool Purview ? If yes, what's your view and is it mature enough?